Florida Congressman Charlie Crist (D-St. Petersburgh), a turncoat who served as a Republican governor from 2007 to 2011, and Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Nikki Fried — the only statewide elected Democrat in the current administration — are leading the race for campaign contributions in the Democratic primary for governor, leaving Sen. Annette Taddeo in the dust.
Granted, Taddeo jumped into the contest in October, later than the other two (although she may have been asking for money already). But her presence hasn’t seemed to slow them down.
Crist raised a total of $670,833 in December between his campaign account and his Friends of Charlie Crist political action committee, according to the latest campaign reports. Fried raised $418,454 in December between her campaign account and her PAC, Florida Consumers First. Taddeo? $63K.
Let’s say it wasn’t a good holiday month for her. And starting Tuesday, with the start of the Florida legislative session, Taddeo won’t be able to raise funds for 60 days. And she may have to rethink this whole thing.
After saying she hit the first month with a bang — when really the $670,000 raised by then was mostly transferred from her senatorial campaign — Taddeo is not raising as much as some may have thought she would. She’s got a total of about $1.7 million between her campaign account and the Fight Back Florida PAC. Crist has collected $5.7 million since only May, which seems impressive, and Fried has reported a total of with $6.5 million, but her PAC dates back to 2018. Only counting the contributions since June, when she opened her campaign account, she has a total closer to $3 million.
Read related: Annette Taddeo starts guv campaign with a bang — and $650K from donors
“As the election year begins, I am grateful for all the support we have received since launching our campaign,” Crist said in a statement. “In that time, folks from the Panhandle to Homestead have made clear they want a governor that actually puts Floridians first.”
Crist’s campaign is crowing because they have more than $3.8 million in cash on hand and eight consecutive months of the strongest support in the Dem primary race. Also, since he has raised almost as much as Fried in a fraction of the time — her PAC dates back to 2018 while his was formed in May — the campaign says this shows that he is the only one who can raise the funds needed to beat Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has reportedly raised about $70 million between his campaign account and his Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC.
Annette Taddeo funding lags far behind Charlie Crist, Nikki Fried in guv’s race added by Ladra on
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