As a campaign consultant, Reginald Cardozo helped cinch the 2021 mayoral race, seating Ken Welch as the first Black mayor of St. Petersburg. But the win was soon mired by financial compliance issues for which Cardozo accepted responsibility. Cardozo will not be returning to consult on Welch’s reelection campaign, he confirmed with Poliverse on Wednesday.

Cardozo is swapping the public sphere for the private sector. “I left politics altogether,” he said, “to pursue an opportunity with a promising startup.” According to his LinkedIn, he has been working in External Affairs for Tillman Fiber, a telecommunications company, for the past four months.

He leaves behind an impressive political record. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Broward County, he served as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration and led presidential campaigns in Florida for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mike Bloomberg, among others.

As a private consultant with The Public Square LLC, he advised Welch’s 2021 campaign. While the campaign succeeded, Welch’s political action committee was soon mired in regulatory trouble, with the state threatening to revoke it for failing to file legally required financial documents disclosing contributions and expenditures.

Cardozo was later appointed chair of the committee in 2023, when it was reorganized and rebranded as Pelican PAC. He inherited the responsibility – and the problems – of the PAC: warning letters from the Florida Division of Elections and no official treasurer.

Compliance issues continued under Cardozo’s leadership. He told the Tampa Bay Times that the “misunderstanding” stemmed from the state not updating its databases to reflect corrections, while Welch distanced himself from the committee, saying, “I do not actively monitor [the PAC].”

The situation worsened in 2024 when Pelican PAC’s treasurer, Yolanda Brown, whom Cardozo had selected, stepped down. A mandatory replacement was not appointed, and the Division of Elections ultimately revoked Pelican PAC, citing repeated violations.

Current filings list Yolanda Brown, who had stepped down from the role while Cadozo was chairperson, as the treasurer of Welch’s currently active PAC.

Editors note: Cardozo was misquoted in a previous version of this article. That quote has been removed.