Municipal elections across the state offer clues to St. Pete mayoral race, warnings for Ken Welch

Voters across Pinellas County and elsewhere cast ballots Tuesday for a number of local races and issues.

While it’s often difficult to find correlations between races in cities and towns where geography is counted in blocks rather than miles, there can be nuggets of information that spotlight voter trends or otherwise offer insight into future elections.

Any number of pundits across the nation have already been doing this — whether looking at higher-profile races that favored Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia, or less headline-grabbing results in Georgia, where Democrats bucked trends and overwhelmingly sent two of their own to the state’s Public Service Commission. In all, the takeaway is that the Midterms could represent a pendulum swing to the left.

Here in the Tampa Bay area, there is at least one local race that could benefit from some Wednesday morning (we know, it’s not morning anymore) quarterbacking.

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch is facing an onslaught of declared and yet-to-be-declared opposition, some of which is from his own Democratic Party.

So let’s look first at St. Pete’s neighbor to the west, St. Pete Beach, where an intraparty battle ended Tuesday night after weeks of contentious campaigning that saw an outside group spending an unknown amount of money to put its finger on the scale for a challenger attempting to unseat the incumbent.

In this case, both candidates — incumbent Adrian Petrila and challenger Scott Tate — are both registered Republicans. Like St. Pete, the race was nonpartisan, but party affiliation was little secret. Tate toppled Petrila with 66% of the vote. The race wasn’t even close.

Petrila had become an unpopular Mayor after Hurricane Helene in 2024, as residents displaced by extensive flooding sought permits to repair their homes.

Backlogs were eventually cleared and the permitting issues were admittedly understandable. Petrila reminded voters that 30 new employees had to be hired to process the influx in permit applications, of which there were 10 times more than what the city typically processes in an entire year.

But explaining that to a family crashing on air mattresses at a friend’s home for months on end because they can’t repair their home until they get a permit isn’t likely to quell the frustration, and Petrila suffered for it at the ballot box.

He made it worse, whether intentionally or not, through bad optics. Resident video surfaced of Petrila directing crews at his own home even as others who lived on the island were still barred access. Not a great look when people are suffering.

If any of this is sounding applicable in St. Pete, congratulations, you’ve been paying attention.

Welch was also blamed for permitting delays, as well as uncollected debris piles that would eventually be called, by some, “Welch piles.” His hurricane recovery following both Helene and Hurricane Milton just two weeks later was not viewed favorably.

Long before that, during Hurricane Ian, a Tampa Bay Times report spotlighted how Welch left the city’s Emergency Operations Center to weather the storm with his family even as his top staff stayed to ensure resident safety.

If you’re working on Welch’s campaign, the correlations don’t look promising.

And it’s not just St. Pete Beach’s election where there are applicable parallels. About 260 miles southeast of St. Pete, in Boca Raton, a razor-thin mayoral race and a pair of ballot questions offer caution to Team Welch.

Here, partisanship isn’t a takeaway, but voter sentiment certainly is. Two candidates are awaiting a recount in the Mayor’s race, currently separated by just six votes. Both of the candidates ran, among other priorities, on controlling development. That strategy is a nod to a controversial development proposal called One Boca.

Two referendums failed Tuesday night related to the proposal — one for $175 million in bonds to build and equip a new police headquarters and related public safety facilities as part of the overall development, and another seeking a long-term, 99-year lease on city-owned land for the project, which would have included residential, retail, office and hotel space. Starting to sound familiar?

In all, 74% of voters rejected the One Boca project, a huge win for the group Save Boca, which advocated against the referendums.

Adding to the pile, all three City Council candidates backed by Save Boca won election Tuesday night.

In St. Pete, Welch has been working extensively to move forward with redevelopment plans at the Historic Gas Plant site, where Tropicana Field and its seat of parking currently sit. There isn’t a plan officially on the table — a request for proposals period has ended and a development team has not yet been selected — but already some are questioning whether the process is being too rushed.

The St. Pete City Council voted 6-2 last month to approve a resolution opposing Welch’s plan to select a developer. The only votes against the resolution came from Welch allies. A couple weeks later Welch doubled down, saying during his annual State of the City address that “now is not the time to halt the process.”

If Boca Raton is any indication, there is at least some chance he may soon eat those words. And none of that even accounts for the criticism he will no doubt face on the campaign trail over almost certainly losing the Tampa Bay Rays for the city.

To be clear, none of these comparisons offer guaranteed outcomes. Welch will no doubt have a base of support that keeps him competitive.

But especially considering his current funding challenges — after having more than $200,000 stolen from his affiliated political committee Welch entered 2026 with just $48,000 in the bank — outcomes elsewhere across the state offer at least a vague roadmap for opponents. At a minimum, they strongly suggest a challenging campaign ahead.

Welch is already facing a challenge from City Council member Brandi Gabbard, who brought the resolution forward opposing moving forward with the Gas Plant development before a study could be conducted. Like Welch, she’s a Democrat. And he’s facing Jim Large, a Republican who served for decades as the city’s Fire Chief.

It’s hard to envision a path to victory for either of them (though in politics we know to never say never), but there’s one undeclared candidate expected to enter the race who perhaps presents the most serious threat to a second Welch term.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Democrat, has already raised more than $1 million to a political committee should he enter the race.

Taken as a whole, it’s worth wondering whether Welch is sweating yet, and whether his declared and potential challengers are reading the tea leaves.

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The author is married to Michelle Schorsch, who is chair of a St. Pete Shines, a political committee focused on St. Pete politics.