Money talks: Crist vastly outraises Welch, but is that enough?

St. Petersburg voters will decide Tuesday whether Mayor Ken Welch gets another term or whether one of five challengers can unseat him, with former Gov. Charlie Crist entering the primary with an enormous financial advantage and enough cash remaining to continue spending if the race heads to November.

Welch is seeking reelection after five years as mayor, facing Crist, City Councilmember Brandi Gabbard, former St. Petersburg Fire Chief Jim Large, former Shore Acres Civic Association president Kevin Batdorf and former St. Petersburg NAACP president Maria Scruggs.

The Aug. 18 election is a nonpartisan primary, but it could also settle the mayoral contest outright. If one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, there will be no November runoff.

Crist has maintained that he believes he can cinch the race Tuesday. Welch has been considerably less interested in making predictions, telling Poliverse after casting his early ballot that he doesn’t make predictions about whether the election will go to a runoff.

Early voting began Aug. 8, giving voters 10 days to cast ballots before Tuesday’s primary. Both Crist and Welch have already cast theirs, but their campaigns enter Election Day with dramatically different amounts of money behind them.

Mayor Ken Welch cumulatively raised more than $406,000 in campaign finances, something of a feat considering his former treasurer, Yolanda Brown, executed unauthorized transactions from his Pelican PAC funds and absconded, forcing Welch to start with peanuts and form a new PAC: St. Pete Progress.

Comparatively, Crist raised nearly $2 million via his St. Pete Shines PAC, despite being the last to officially file his candidacy.

Crist’s campaign touted the financial disparity as a clear signal that “people are frustrated with the status quo,” and to disseminate that message, St. Pete Shines spent more than $1.5 million, leaving around $366,000 in cash on hand and putting Crist in a good position to continue advertising after the primary.

Conversely, Welch has $56,000 on hand after his expenses ahead of the primary. Crist therefore enters Tuesday with roughly 6.5 times as much cash remaining.

But there is another potential wrinkle in the financial picture. Gabbard has operated on a fraction of either frontrunner’s resources, raising about $57,000 between her campaign account and Forward Together political committee through the latest reporting period. If the councilwoman manages an upset and advances past Welch, she could enter a November matchup with Crist having raised only a small fraction of his nearly $2 million haul.

Despite the financial disparities, Welch’s campaign says this race will not be determined by comparing wallet size.

The Welch campaign’s senior advisor Adrienne Bogen told Poliverse: “While Charlie Crist stacks up checks from special interests who don’t live here, Mayor Welch has been busy actually running the city …

“Voters know the difference between a perennial candidate trying to buy an election funded by outsiders and a mayor who’s delivered for them.”

The “special interests” Bogen refers to include the Seminole Tribe of Florida and Heritage Insurance, along with interests connected to Duke Energy and other utilities, which have drawn scrutiny from the public and provided ample dry straw for Welch’s political opponents to ignite.

To wit: Seminole Gaming contributed $50,000 to St. Pete Shines. Crist has a long history with the Seminole Tribe, having negotiated a major gambling compact with the Tribe while he served as governor.

Heritage Insurance contributed $10,000. Heritage has been a significant player in Florida politics and was at the center of controversy in 2013 after contributing $110,000 to a committee supporting then-Gov. Rick Scott, while receiving a deal to take thousands of policies from state-backed Citizens Property Insurance.

Crist allies criticized that relationship at the time, but Crist now finds himself benefiting from a contribution from the same company during his mayoral run, albeit at a reduced monetary gain: $110,000 versus $10,000.

The utility interests are notable and topical, though the utilities themselves did not make the contributions. Lobbyists and lobbying firms that represent Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light have contributed to St. Pete Shines. Duke has said contributions from its lobbyists were not made on the company’s behalf.

The support is notable given Crist’s history of criticizing Florida’s powerful investor-owned utilities.

The Duke-linked contributions have immediate relevance in St. Petersburg because Duke is the city’s electric provider. The city’s longterm franchise agreement with Duke has expired as officials consider the future of electric service, including whether a city-owned utility could be feasible. The next mayor could have considerable influence over that process.

Important note: there is no evidence that the contributions have resulted in promises or favorable treatment from Crist.

The financial disparity nevertheless creates two very different positions heading into Tuesday. Crist has already spent heavily to introduce his candidacy and make his case against the incumbent, but still has hundreds of thousands of dollars available should neither candidate cross the 50% threshold. Welch has substantially less money remaining, but enters the primary as the sitting mayor with the last five years in office notched on his belt.

And Gabbard remains the financial underdog with the potential to scramble that matchup entirely. Should she finish in the top two, the November race would pit a sitting city councilwoman whose fundraising has been measured in tens of thousands against a former governor whose political operation has raised nearly $2 million.