Former Florida governor and U.S. representative Charlie Crist has run for public office seven times in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
Now, Crist, 69, is considering running to be the mayor of his hometown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of friends encourage me to consider it,\u201d Crist told the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesdayabout jumping into the St. Petersburg mayor\u2019s race. He said he\u2019s \u201cseriously considering it\u201d because he loves the city.<\/p>\n
Crist lives in the Gateway area with his fianc\u00e9e, ChelseaGrimes<\/a>. He said he would talk to his family more before making a decision.<\/p>\n Crist has the name recognition and a political background that could shake up a mayor\u2019s race that is a year out. The primary election is in August 2026, with a runoff in November if no candidate wins a majority.<\/p>\n A few names have already entered the fray, including City Council member Brandi Gabbard<\/a> and community activist Maria Scruggs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mayor Ken Welch hasn\u2019t filed yet but has started campaigning.<\/p>\n Crist most recently served as a Democratic U.S. representative for Florida\u2019s 13th Congressional District from 2017 to 2022but resigned <\/a>his seat to mount an unsuccessful challenge to incumbent Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n In his long career in public service<\/a>, Crist has been a state senator, education commissioner, attorney general, congressman and governor. He was a Republican governor from 2007 to 2011, then later ran as an independent for U.S. Senate in 2010, and is now a registered Democrat.<\/p>\n Should he decide to jump into the nonpartisan mayor\u2019s race, Crist would mount a challenge Welch has not seen before. Welch went uncontested to keep his Pinellas County Commission seat in 2008 and 2016. He handily beat a challenge from Scruggs in 2012.<\/p>\n And in 2021, Welch beat council member Robert Blackmon midway through his first term on the council by 20 percentage points.<\/p>\n Crist\u2019s candidacy would not only pit two Democrats against each other, but two allies.<\/p>\n Crist gave Welch one of his first endorsements in 2020,beforeWelch even entered the mayor\u2019s race<\/a>. Welch, as mayor-elect, endorsed Crist for governor the following year<\/a>. Their political committees have exchanged campaign contributions.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a friend,\u201d Crist said of Welch. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll have more to say later.\u201d<\/p>\n Welch, 61, declined to comment specifically about Crist\u2019s candidacy. A city spokesperson referred to aTuesday statement emailed in response to news that Gabbard was jumping into the mayoral race.<\/p>\n \u201cMy focus remains on doing the job the people of St. Petersburg elected me to do, and the results speak for themselves,\u201d Welch saidin that statement. \u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of what we\u2019ve accomplished together, even through unprecedented challenges like the back-to-back storms of 2024. But there\u2019s still more work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a developing story. Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Florida governor and U.S. representative Charlie Crist has run for public office seven times in the past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3347,2346,5655,3821,202,204,203,199,201,200,3815],"class_list":["post-5112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-charlie-crist","tag-ken-welch","tag-mayors-race","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}