![\"Candidate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TOS-L-city-com-debate_1588f-2.jpg\")
Candidate Mira Tanna answers a question during the Orlando City Council District 3 Debate hosted by the Tiger Bay Club of Central Florida, at Dubsdread Golf Course, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\nThe runoff election for Orlando\u2019s District 3 city council seat is drawing big money and a who\u2019s who of local Democrats lining up behind either Roger Chapin or Mira Tanna, who were separated by just 14 votes two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
The massive interest in the race is part of the battle of the old guard vs. the new guard in the party, as moderates and progressives jockey for position in preparation for longtime Mayor Buddy Dyer leaving office next year.<\/p>\n
On one side, Chapin has lined up endorsements from Dyer, retiring commissioner Robert Stuart, Orange County Sheriff John Mina, unions representing police and firefighters, as well as two other candidates for the seat who didn\u2019t make the runoff.<\/p>\n
Tanna, meanwhile, has backing from Rep. Anna Eskamani, so far the lone candidate to succeed Dyer as Orlando mayor in 2027, as well as U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, State Attorney Monique Worrell and a slew of other elected progressives and organizations.<\/p>\n
Candidate Mira Tanna answers a question during the Orlando City Council District 3 Debate hosted by the Tiger Bay Club of Central Florida, at Dubsdread Golf Course, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
Voters are likely to see a lot of the two campaigns in the coming weeks, as the candidates and their teams have fanned out in neighborhoods like College Park, Audubon Park, Baldwin Park and Rosemont.<\/p>\n
The race is officially nonpartisan. More than 41% of District 3 voters are registered Democrats, while 29% are Republicans and 28% are non-party affiliated.<\/p>\n
Tanna\u2019s door-knocking campaign has been bolstered by volunteers with the Orange County Young Democrats, as well as others affiliated with young progressive stars Eskamani and Frost.<\/p>\n
Tanna, who works as Orlando\u2019s grants manager, said she\u2019s telling voters her background in City Hall and as a civil rights advocate marks a distinct difference from Chapin, a longtime executive at Mears Transportation who is the son of former Orange County mayor Linda Chapin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people understand there\u2019s a clear choice between someone who has worked for 30 years to open the doors of government to big business and somebody who has worked for 30 years for residents,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Chapin has contended his experience on crucial boards like governing the Orlando Utilities Commission and reviewing developments on the Municipal Planning Board will have him ready to work right away.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s asking voters to \u201cplease consider my experience and my ability to hit job running on day 1.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Candidate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TOS-L-city-com-debate_2445f.jpg\")
Candidate for Orlando City Council Roger Chapin chats with Jim Gray, right, before the start of the debates hosted by the Tiger Bay Club of Central Florida, at Dubsdread Golf Course, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
But his professional career and his two-year tenure on OUC\u2019s board have come under fire in advertisements in recent days.<\/p>\n
One mailer, sent this week by a group called Thriving Together, LLC shows Tanna with local Democratic officials stating she was \u201cfighting for us,\u201d while chiding Chapin as a \u201clobbyist and corporate insider fighting for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chapin, who was a vice president at Mears Transportation for 20 years, was a registered lobbyist for the company\u2019s business at Orlando International Airport. Now he runs his own communications company, for which he said Mears is his only client.<\/p>\n
The ad and another by a climate group called genCleo also ding Chapin for voting to raise utility rates, as he supported OUC\u2019s controversial rate overhaul last year. Chapin countered that rates are down 9% over his tenure and that he voted four times to lower rates, adding he\u2019s proud of his time on the board.<\/p>\n
He said his candidacy is boosted by endorsements from former rivals Chris Durant and Kimberly Kiss, the third- and fourth-place finishers in the Nov. 4 general election.<\/p>\n
They have been canvassing with him regularly, he said, and have appeared in mail and social media ads. Durant was paid $1,500, campaign reports show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think it will help because they\u2019re actively working, and I think it will help because Chris made such an impression on the campaign trail,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the first two weeks of November, both candidates in the runoff brought in large sums of money to power their campaigns. Chapin raised about $40,000 and Tanna about $20,000.<\/p>\n
Including carryover from the lead-up to the November election, Chapin has about $85,000 left to spend.\u00a0In total, he\u2019s raised about $260,000 to Tanna\u2019s $84,000.<\/p>\n
Early voting in the race is from Dec. 1 to Dec. 7 at the elections office on Kaley Street. Election Day is Tuesday, Dec. 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The runoff election for Orlando\u2019s District 3 city council seat is drawing big money and a who\u2019s who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2811,114,266,115,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-56619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-election","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-orlando-headlines","14":"tag-orlando-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56619","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=56619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}