Kelly Kirschner posts $224K in first quarter, says he’s ready to battle Sydney Gruters in CD 16

Democratic congressional candidate Kelly Kirschner reported raising almost $224,000 in his first quarter running to flip Florida’s 16th Congressional District.

The Pinellas Democrat in comments to Florida Politics directly contrasted his tally with that of Sydney Gruters, the Republican front-runner for the open seat. The former Sarasota Mayor also suggested he’s the only candidate in the field with experience fighting a political machine led by Gruters’ husband, Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters.

Sydney Gruters’ campaign announced she raised nearly $1 million before the close of the quarter.

“We have close to double the number of unique donors as Gruters, while raising less than half of her haul, evidencing where grass roots support across this district lies,” Kirschner said.

“There is momentum with a large and growing tent of residents and voters who are fed up with Florida machine politics funded by the development community and special interests. We have run this race before with Joe Gruters as chair of a Republican Party and we faced a similar disparity in fundraising. We still won the race with 75% of the vote. We intend to do the same in November and all across this six-county region, the feedback and response we are getting tells us this will be the case. People are fed up. It’s time to fix this.”

Kirschner’s campaign said he had 548 different donors to his campaign, which he launched in May. Federal Election Commission reports show he closed June with more than $166,000 on the bank.

Gruters is one of five Democrats who qualified to run in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Longboat Key Republican. That means he still faces Air Force veteran and teacher Tamika Lyles, former broadcast journalist and business owner Glenn Pearson and healthcare policy expert Jan Schneider.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has expressed confidence it can flip the seat blue this Fall, and just added CD 16 to its “Districts in Play.” The political arm of the House Democratic Caucus has not endorsed a Primary candidate to date.

Kirschner said the decision from Washington reflects that voters in the district want change.

“The DCCC didn’t put this district in play. The people of this district did,” he said. “Washington noticed because 548 of our neighbors made it impossible not to. This race isn’t going to be decided by who has the most powerful friends. It’s going to be decided by who actually has the community with them.”