Uthmeier stretches money lead with $500K from Perlmutters as Democrats push hidden insurer report in AG race

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier widened his fundraising advantage in the final weeks of the 2026 campaign after former Marvel Entertainment chief Ike Perlmutter and his wife, Laura, gave his political committee $500,000, while his Democratic opponent, former state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez, is trying to make a long-withheld state report on property insurers and their affiliated companies a central issue before the Nov. 3 election.

The two developments show the shape of the race for Florida's top legal office: a Republican incumbent with a large cash cushion and backing from President Donald Trump, and a Democratic challenger leaning on homeowners' frustration with insurance costs, a race that plays out in the shadow of the Hope Florida controversy that has followed Uthmeier since 2025.

A $500,000 week for Uthmeier's committee

Ike and Laura Perlmutter each gave $250,000 to Friends of James Uthmeier, the attorney general's political committee, on Sept. 25, according to Florida Politics. The two checks made up most of the nearly $750,000 the committee raised that week.

Between the committee and his campaign account, Uthmeier had raised more than $11.6 million and had more than $9.5 million available as of Sept. 25, Florida Politics reported. Rodríguez raised about $170,000 the same week and roughly $2.8 million overall, according to the outlet's review of state finance reports.

Who the candidates are

Uthmeier, a Republican, was sworn in as attorney general on Feb. 17, 2025, after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to replace Ashley Moody, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate. Before that, Uthmeier served as DeSantis' chief of staff. He is running for a full term with Trump's endorsement.

Rodríguez, a Miami Democrat, served in the Florida Senate from 2016 to 2020 and was assistant secretary of labor for employment and training in the U.S. Department of Labor from 2024 to 2025. He has been endorsed by labor groups including the Florida AFL-CIO, AFSCME Florida and SEIU Florida.

Public polling suggests a closer race than the money gap would indicate. A St. Pete Polls survey taken Sept. 15 to 17 showed Uthmeier at 43% and Rodríguez at 42%, with 15% undecided, and a Change Research survey taken Sept. 7 to 9 showed the two tied at 46%.

Democrats spotlight insurer affiliate report

On Oct. 1, Rodríguez and Annette Taddeo, the Democratic nominee for chief financial officer, held a press conference focused on a 2022 study commissioned by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation that examined payments from property insurers to affiliated companies. The study, known as the Affiliated Fee Analysis and prepared by Risk & Regulatory Consulting, reviewed 53 insurers' finances from 2017 through 2019.

The Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel recently published the unredacted report. According to their reporting, the insurers in the study recorded $432 million in combined losses over those three years, excluding outliers, while the affiliates they paid earned $1.3 billion in net income. The consultant identified 20 insurers whose affiliate payments were "presumed not to be fair and reasonable." Earlier news coverage of the study in 2025 put affiliates' net income at $1.8 billion across all 53 insurers.

The figures do not by themselves establish that affiliate payments caused higher premiums, insurer failures or regulatory violations, and the consultant did not make those findings, according to published accounts of the report.

About 10 days before the newspapers published the report, the Florida Senate demanded that the papers destroy their copies, arguing it contained proprietary trade secrets. The newspapers published it anyway. Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky's office has called the study "incredibly flawed and outdated" and said it "should never be relied upon as accurate." Consultant Jan Moenck testified in 2025 that she viewed the report as complete and that regulators had not requested changes.

What the Democrats are proposing

Rodríguez said he would "fight for policyholders" as attorney general and pursue money taken from them in unfair or illegal ways. He criticized the Senate's demand to the newspapers, saying it was alarming that the press was being threatened to protect what he called the alleged trade secrets of companies.

Taddeo proposed a public report card showing how quickly insurers handle claims and how much of their premiums go to affiliated businesses. Noting that Florida calls itself the Sunshine State, she said, "Let's have real sunshine." Taddeo also said the average Florida homeowner now pays about $8,000 a year for coverage, according to WGCU.

Republicans have countered that they have backed transparency. Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia supported 2025 legislation requiring public rate transparency reports that include data on affiliate transactions. Coverage of the Oct. 1 event did not include a response from Uthmeier's campaign.

A long-running Tallahassee fight

The report has been a subject of legislative scrutiny for more than a year:

At the March 2025 hearing, Altmaier said the report "raised some red flags." Yaworsky defended treating it as unfinished, telling lawmakers, "A draft is a very real thing to us." House Speaker Daniel Perez said at the time that there was a potential that insurers' claims of losses were not real.

The Hope Florida shadow

The attorney general's race is also unfolding against the Hope Florida controversy. In 2024, $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid overbilling settlement with Centene went to the Hope Florida Foundation, the charity tied to first lady Casey DeSantis' Hope Florida initiative. The foundation sent $5 million each to two nonprofits, Secure Florida's Future and Save Our Society From Drugs, which then sent money to Keep Florida Clean, a political committee chaired by Uthmeier that opposed the 2024 recreational marijuana amendment.

Republican state Rep. Alex Andrade led a House inquiry into the transfers, and Leon County State Attorney Jack Campbell opened a criminal investigation in May 2025. Uthmeier has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

What's next

Florida's voter registration deadline for the general election is Monday, Oct. 5, and the statewide early voting period runs at least from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31. Both campaigns will continue filing finance reports with the Florida Division of Elections in the final weeks, which will show whether Uthmeier's financial edge keeps growing.

Rodríguez and Taddeo have signaled they will keep pressing the insurer report as an issue for down-ballot Cabinet races, while Uthmeier heads into October with a cash advantage of several million dollars and the endorsement of Trump.