Republican Rep. Dan Webster spent months considering where to run after court-ordered redistricting turned his old seat safely blue, and on Monday, he announced that he’d campaign for the open 11th District. The 11th only includes about 18 percent of Webster’s current seat, though the Tampa Bay Times’ Adam Smith says that Webster has represented about 30 percent of this turf over his years in Congress and in the legislature.
The 11th, which includes the infamous mega-retirement community The Villages, backed Romney 59-40, but Webster isn’t assured the GOP nomination. Justin Grabelle, the former chief of staff to retiring Rep. Richard Nugent, has been running here for months, and Nugent is supporting him. Webster had a $334,000 to $99,000 cash-on-hand edge over Grabelle at the end of December, but Grabelle may be able to make up the gap. Webster challenged both John Boehner and Paul Ryan for the speakership, and the national GOP establishment has little incentive to help him raise money; Webster was in the legislature for decades and he served as speaker of the state House in the mid-1990s, so he’s not exactly the type of guy who can easily rally tea party support.
However, Grabelle has his own issues. Grabelle used to work for Nugent’s predecessor Ginny Brown-Waite, but she was not impressed with his performance. In December, she said she appointed him to serve as her interim chief of staff but soon “demoted” him. Brown-Waite didn’t go into detail about what happened, but said that she was hoping that Grabelle would "grow into the job and it just wasn't there … I know six years have elapsed, but I'm not sure six years is enough." Brown-Waite and state Sen. Wilton Simpson announced two months ago that they would support rancher Kelly Rice if he ran, but Rice still hasn’t jumped in. The filing deadline for the August primary is in June, so there’s still plenty of time for Rice or other ambitious Republicans to get in.