St. Petersburg City Council member Richie Floyd has been re-elected to his District 8 seat after the city’s qualifying deadline for the 2026 election passed without an opponent filing to challenge him.
Floyd celebrated the win on social media.
“We WON. I’m honored to have been reelected for a second term to St. Pete City Council! It’s the honor of a lifetime to represent the hard working people of District 8 at City Hall, and I’m grateful to be able to spend four more years working on building a city that stands up for its residents and truly works for everyone,” Floyd wrote on Facebook.
He added his thanks to “everyone who helped us knock over 5000 doors and raise funds from nearly 500 people in just a handful of months! We couldn’t have accomplished it without you.”
Floyd raised more than $36,000 for his race, as of the end of March, and spent just over $3,000 of those funds. He was running on affordability, protections for tenants and fighting corporate influence in city government.
Floyd was first elected four years ago. While City Council positions are nonpartisan, Floyd describes himself as a Democratic Socialist, which made waves in his first election.
In his first bid for office — as he did with his most recent re-election effort — Floyd ran a grassroots campaign focused on small-dollar donations and a volunteer-driven ground game.
Floyd, a Florida native, previously worked as an electrical engineer and as a science teacher with Pinellas County Schools. He lives in the Central Oak Park neighborhood with his wife, Miranda, and became involved in civic and political organizing after moving to St. Petersburg.
Floyd supports building mixed-income, city-owned social housing, expanding small-scale housing options and providing legal assistance to tenants facing eviction. His platform also calls for limiting short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. Floyd also criticized approaches that subsidize landlords while rents continue to rise, saying the city should instead pursue policies that deliver meaningful affordability for residents.
