{"id":62331,"date":"2025-11-27T03:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/62331\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T03:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:50:08","slug":"florida-woman-wants-to-split-st-johns-county-to-create-trump-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/62331\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida woman wants to split St. Johns County to create \u2018Trump County\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/6c21ef18c08b3e942b3e6b917e8cfbca.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Action News Jax is hearing from the Flagler County mother who started the petition to carve out parts of St. Johns County, Flagler County, and Volusia County to create <a href=\"https:\/\/trumpcountyfl.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:\u201cTrump County.\u201d;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">\u201cTrump County.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Jen Herold told us she made the movement as a way to spur up more money to fund beach restoration projects across northeast Florida, including in St. Johns County. She said she believes it\u2019s an issue that local governments aren\u2019t doing enough about, so she wanted to use the president\u2019s name to draw attention.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/live-breaking\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:&gt;&gt;&gt; STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE &lt;&lt;&lt;;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">&gt;&gt;&gt; STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE &lt;&lt;&lt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe\u2019re, in a way, trying to honor [President Trump],\u201d said Herold, \u201cwe\u2019re also trying to say, hey, if we\u2019re Trump County, hopefully that brings some of that economic drive here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Florida Constitution says counties can be \u201ccreated, abolished, or changed by law,\u201d meaning enough support among state lawmakers and the governor is all it would take to create a new county, rather than the support of the voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Florida state library has archives of county maps going back to 1820, when the first state map was established under Spanish rule. Those maps show that a new county hasn\u2019t been established in Florida in almost 100 years, when Gilchrist County was created in December of 1925.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Not every voter we spoke with felt that they could support the creation of a \u201cTrump County.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThat would be a hard pill to swallow,\u201d said Barbara Hummel, who lives on Anastasia Island.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Anastasia Island is one of the St. Johns County beach communities that would be incorporated into \u201cTrump County,\u201d should it be established by law. Butler Beach, Crescent Beach, Marineland, and St. Augustine Beach would also be split from St. Johns to be incorporated into the new county.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI think there are better ways to use [President Trump\u2019s] political influence,\u201d Hummel said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">[DOWNLOAD: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This isn\u2019t the first time a conversation has started about reshaping parts of northeast Florida into a new county. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsjax.com\/news\/local\/unf-poll-creates-debate-about-possible-beaches-split-duval-county\/UEZ2Z7SYBZDGTBLPSAHBJHXQHI\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Action News Jax told you earlier this year;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Action News Jax told you earlier this year<\/a> that 48% of voters who took a poll from the University of North Florida said they\u2019d support a separation of Atlantic, Jacksonville, and Neptune beaches from Duval County to become their own county.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Action News Jax reached out to multiple St. Johns County commissioners, the St. Johns County Republican Party, and the St. Johns County Democratic Party for their response to the notion of a \u201cTrump County.\u201d We are still waiting for a response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Herold\u2019s petition, at the publishing of this article, has slightly more than 100 signatures. She told us she\u2019s hoping to rally enough support to catch the attention of state lawmakers sometime over the next few years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThis would allow all of these areas to pool resources and hopefully efficiently prioritize and meet all of the needs of our coastal areas,\u201d said Herold.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">[SIGN UP: <a href=\"https:\/\/membercenter.actionnewsjax.com\/newsletters\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Action News Jax is hearing from the Flagler County mother who started the petition to carve out parts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37623,4717,28,30,29,37622,36806,5902,2684,36807,2261],"class_list":["post-62331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-barbara-hummel","tag-flagler-county","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gilchrist-county","tag-jen-herold","tag-st-johns-county","tag-trump","tag-trump-county","tag-volusia-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62331","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=62331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}