Politics
Michele Rayner decries ‘dirty, dark money’ behind SD 16 attack mailer
A newly formed political committee is telling Democratic voters that Rep. Michele Rayner “votes like a Republican,” placing her alongside images of President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis in a mailer despite her liberal track record.
The political advertisement brands Rayner — described by her campaign as a “progressive champion” — as “a real Republican” and “basically just a right-wing Republican.” It claims donors who gave more than $1 million to Trump and DeSantis also contributed to Rayner, accuses her of siding with the National Rifle Association on gunmaker liability, and says she declined to vote for former President Barack Obama “because she was a Republican.”
Rayner — who is running against House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell in the Aug. 18 Democratic Primary for Senate District 16 — condemned the claims as “dirty, dark money campaigning.”
The mailer was paid for by People For Honor Project, a newly formed Florida political committee with a short history of donors. Campaign finance records show the PC raised nearly $75,000 through July 31 and reported spending nearly $39,000 through July 29, including a payment of nearly $32,000 to Deliver Strategies on July 28 for the mailers.
Rayner’s campaign responded by scrutinizing the committee’s donors, arguing that more than $50,000 of its funds can be connected to interests supporting data-center development. The campaign theorized Rayner’s vote against HB 1007 could have prompted the attack ad, and also called on Driskell’s campaign to denounce it and call for a moratorium on data centers.
“If my opponent had no hand in these mailers, she owes it to the communities she’s seeking to serve to say so and to denounce these underhanded, dark money tactics that are everything that’s wrong with politics today,” Rayner said in a press release.
“She should also join me in calling for a moratorium on new data centers in Florida that will drive up our electric bills, pollute our water supply, and harm the quality of life of the people who call our state home.”
Driskell’s campaign told Florida Politics she was not involved with the mailer or the committee that commissioned it, and indicated that Driskell also supports a moratorium on data centers.
“These are not Leader Driskell’s mailers; they are not her political committee’s, and any statement to the contrary is intentionally misleading,” campaign spokesperson Kristin Harden said. “Leader Driskell has already publicly stated her support for a moratorium on building new AI data centers in the area.”
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