Ken Welch and Charlie Crist Head Into Final Month of St. Petersburg Mayor Runoff

With four weeks left before the Nov. 3 runoff, St. Petersburg's mayoral race has narrowed to a head-to-head contest between incumbent Mayor Ken Welch and former Gov. Charlie Crist, who finished first in the August primary by nearly 15 points but fell short of the majority needed to win outright. The race, centered on the loss of the Tampa Bay Rays, the city's hurricane recovery and property taxes, will decide who leads Florida's fifth-largest city as it rebuilds from the 2024 storms and plans the future of the Historic Gas Plant District.

Monday, Oct. 5, is also the deadline to register to vote or change party affiliation for the Nov. 3 general election in Florida, the 29th day before the election.

How the primary shook out

Crist led a six-candidate field in the Aug. 18 primary with about 35 percent of the vote, while Welch finished second with about 21 percent. Because no one cleared 50 percent, the top two advanced. Unofficial results showed:

Civic association leader Kevin Batdorf received the remaining roughly 3 percent. Large, the city's fire chief, and Gabbard, a City Council member, together drew more than a third of the vote, and where their supporters go is a central question of the runoff.

Crist entered the race with a large money advantage. At the time of the primary he had raised more than $2 million, compared with less than $500,000 for Welch, WUSF reported. On primary night, Welch framed the runoff in sports terms: "The playoffs are over and we're going to the championship game."

Two familiar names

Welch, a former Pinellas County commissioner, was elected in 2021 as St. Petersburg's first Black mayor. He has argued that he is the only candidate with experience running a city. "No other candidate on this stage has led this city or any city," he said at the first candidate debate in June, hosted by the NAACP St. Petersburg Branch at the Barack Obama Library. He has also accused critics of "talking our city down."

Crist grew up in St. Petersburg, moving there at age 3, and has held statewide and federal office as both a Republican and a Democrat. He served as Florida's Republican governor from 2007 to 2011, later became a Democrat, represented the St. Petersburg area in Congress from 2017 to 2023 and lost the 2022 governor's race to Ron DeSantis. He formally filed for mayor in April 2026, saying the city needs "better leadership than we currently have."

The Rays and the Gas Plant District

The Rays' exit has dominated the campaign. The team withdrew from its agreement to build a new ballpark in the Historic Gas Plant District after Hurricane Milton shredded the roof of Tropicana Field in October 2024, a collapse that undid what had been Welch's signature project. The 86-acre district around the Trop remains the city's largest redevelopment opportunity, and how it is planned now will shape downtown St. Petersburg for decades.

Crist has called the Rays' departure "catastrophic" and blamed City Hall. In a WUSF interview in July, he described himself as a "never-give-up kind of guy" who would try to keep the team, arguing that St. Petersburg already has a stadium while Tampa does not, and that memorandums of understanding with Tampa are "not binding contracts." At the June debate, Crist also listed the collapse of a planned Moffitt Cancer Center branch in St. Petersburg and stalled management changes at the Mahaffey Theater as failures on Welch's watch.

Hurricane recovery

Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which struck within two weeks of each other in 2024, flooded thousands of homes along the city's coast and left a lasting mark on the race. Crist has said the administration was unprepared and has proposed signing debris-removal contracts before storms hit so cleanup can start immediately afterward, citing his experience during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. During the primary, Batdorf criticized the city's handling of storm surge planning and sewage problems, recalling residents being told not to flush their toilets. Gabbard, who has since been eliminated, argued that empathy during recovery was "a strength, not a weakness."

Welch has defended his administration's recovery work and the city's heavy investment in storm recovery and resilience projects since 2024, and he has tied that work to the budget debate. "Property taxes help fund the first responders who power public safety in St. Petersburg," he said in June.

Property taxes

Taxes are the clearest policy split. Crist has proposed cutting the city's operating millage rate by 0.40 mills, which would return about $14.8 million a year to residents and businesses, while promising to keep funding for police, fire, affordable housing, storm recovery, parks and libraries. He has said the city has too many highly paid employees and needs to spend money more wisely.

Welch called the plan "out-of-touch" and linked it to DeSantis's push to eliminate property taxes on homesteaded properties. "Cities cannot run on slogans and wishful thinking," Welch said in June. Police and firefighter unions, which back Welch, warned that revenue cuts could affect recruitment, equipment and staffing.

Debates and the campaign calendar

A televised debate between the two finalists is scheduled for Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. on Spectrum Bay News 9, according to reports on the runoff schedule. Key dates for St. Petersburg voters:

Florida law requires counties to offer early voting at least from the 10th day through the 3rd day before an election, and supervisors may add days. The Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections posts early voting sites and hours at votepinellas.gov.

What's next

The Oct. 13 debate is likely the largest audience either candidate will have before ballots go out in large numbers. Welch needs to win over Large and Gabbard voters to overcome Crist's primary margin and fundraising edge, while Crist will try to keep the race focused on the Rays and storm response. Mail ballots will be arriving at Pinellas homes through October, and early voting opens no later than Oct. 24. The winner will be sworn in on Jan. 7, 2027, and will inherit decisions on the Gas Plant District, the city budget and the next hurricane season.