Tampa, FL Mayor: Mayor Bob Buckhorn is termed-out, and Tampa has a crowded 2019 contest to replace him. All the candidates will face off on March 5 on one nonpartisan ballot, and there would be an April 23 runoff if no one takes a majority of the vote. The candidate filing deadline is Jan. 18. Tampa is a very blue city, but it’s been open to electing moderate Democrats like Buckhorn.
The early frontrunner looks like Jane Castor, who was the city’s first gay police chief and would hold that same distinction if she won the mayor’s office. Castor, who is not related to Tampa Rep. Kathy Castor, was a registered Republican from the age of 18 until shortly after she finished her stint leading the police department last year. Castor, who calls herself a moderate, announced at the time that she was joining the Democratic Party because she was unhappy that the GOP was turning away from diversity and treating people fairly.
However, while Castor was generally popular during her tenure, she may be in for some problems over the police force’s old “biking while black” tickets. In 2015, when she was still police chief, the Tampa Bay Times reported that eight in ten bicyclists who’d received tickets in the city for infractions like riding without a light or with having another person on the handlebars were black (the city is about 25 percent black). The paper also noted that Tampa had handed out more tickets than Miami, Jacksonville, St. Petersburg, and Orlando combined.
At the time, Castor defended the policy, arguing that it was meant to make high-crime areas safer. However, she and Buckhorn requested a review from the U.S. Justice Department, which concluded that it unfairly targeted black cyclists. In April, ahead of her anticipated mayoral campaign launch, Castor said that, while she had good intentions, she now understood that the “negative consequences were completely unacceptable” and that, “Given that hindsight, we wouldn’t have used that tactic.”
Castor and her allied PAC have so far raised $420,000, which is more than the rest of the field … with one big exception. Retired banker David Straz has largely been self-funding his campaign, and he’s already spent a hefty $1.15 million―more than five times as much as the rest of the field combined. Straz, who began airing TV ads all the way back in August, already had some name local name recognition: The downtown performing arts center is named for him, as is a building at the University of Tampa.
However, while national politics may not be a big factor in this race, Straz’s support for Donald Trump in 2016, as well as his past donations to GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, could cause him problems. Straz announced in April that he was switching his party registration from no-party to Democratic, and said that he regrets that vote. However, Straz’s not-so-old political history didn’t prevent him from receiving endorsements from five unions last week.
There are several other candidates competing here. Former Hillsborough County Commissioner Ed Turanchik has raised $310,000 between his campaign and allied committees. Turanchik is the only candidate who opposed a November referendum in the county to raise sales taxes to fund transportation improvements. The measure passed with 57 percent of the vote, and Turanchik said at a recent debate that, now that the voters have spoken, he wants to make sure the money goes to road improvements and mass transit.
Turanchik has been out of office since he left the county commission in 1998, and he finished fourth place in the five-person 2011 contest. However, Turanchik was attacked quite a bit in early mayoral forums this year, which could be a sign that his rivals still see him as a threat.
City Councilors Harry Cohen and Mike Suarez are both running as well. Cohen and his allied committees have raised $280,000 to date, while Suarez brought in $122,000. Cohen has the support of former Mayor Sandra Freedman, who left office in the mid-1990s.
Also in the race is branding consultant Topher Morrison, who has raised about $60,000. Morrison has gotten much of his media coverage because of his previous career as a professional hypnotist, though he’s impressed some observers at debates. Community activist LaVaughn King, who is the only black candidate who has been at the debates, hasn’t raised anything yet.