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What’s at stake in dark money fueled Tallahassee elections?

Voters could decide to shift the balance of power on the Tallahassee City Commission, moving from a moderate-leaning, Chamber-friendly majority in place now to a more progressive-minded, anti-developer one.
Or they could opt to set back years-long efforts by a progressive insurgency that has struggled to take control by keeping the status quo in place or even expanding its ranks on the five-person, all-Democratic commission.
Voters also will decide whether to keep the lone elected Republican on the School Board or replace her with a Democratic newcomer in a contest that has seen both political parties bring out their heavy artillery.
Much is at stake in Tuesday’s primary election, in both partisan and nonpartisan contests up and down the ballot.
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Besides two big City Commission races, with incumbents from both sides facing serious challenges, and two partisan-fueled School Board contests, voters in Leon County will weigh in on everything from U.S. Senate to county judge.
Infused with cash from dark money political operations, the races for City Commission and judge could go on to runoffs in November because of the sheer number of candidates competing in them. But the School Board contests and an unusually feisty race for property appraiser will be flat-out decided in the primary.
Here are a few of the key things at stake and lingering questions in Tuesday’s election.
The progressive slate hoping to make inroads in 2024 includes City Commissioner Jack Porter, who’s seeking a second term for Seat 1, Dot Inman-Johnson, who’s running for City Commission Seat 2, and Jeremy Rogers, a first-time candidate running for School Board District 4.
All three are close allies of City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow, who’s led the local progressive movement since his election in 2018, and Ryan Ray, Matlow’s aide and chair of the Leon County Democratic Executive Committee. Matlow’s One Tallahassee political committee has raised more than $148,000 on marketing for the three.
The political committee – which Matlow pledged wouldn’t be used for negative ads and would be funded “by working people and civic minded organizations that care about Tallahassee’s future” – has benefited from a surge of more than $125,000 from outside groups in less than a month.
In a statement, Matlow said the committee “is funded by hundreds of small-dollar donors and larger democratic advocacy groups focused on mitigating the disastrous effects of climate change.”
Though Matlow’s committee has more than 190 donations, some in symbolic $27 increments, most of it came from the Green Advocacy Project, a social welfare nonprofit based in Palo Alto, California, whose leaders worked for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaigns. The social welfare nonprofit and its president, Michael Kieschnick have given a combined $100,000, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
Another $25,000 came from a Delaware-based PAC called Local Jobs and Economic Development Fund, which has funded city candidates in a Pueblo, Colorado election to help “green candidates” and get progressives elected.
On the other side, the Grow Tallahassee PC, funded by local developers and chaired by businessman Bugra Demirel, has raised more than $107,000 in 2024 to electioneer for City Commissioner Curtis Richardson, who’s trying to fend off a challenge by Inman-Johnson, and Rudy Ferguson, who’s trying to unseat Porter. Grow Tallahassee got a zero hour $10,000 cash infusion from a group controlled by Midway construction industry titan Rudy Rowe.
Other players include Jeff Phipps, whose Citizens for Balanced Growth is funding pro-Richardson commercials who also gave to the Grow PC, and the major parties, which bought attack mailers in the School Board race between incumbent Laurie Lawson Cox, a Republican, and Rogers, a Democrat.
Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, walked door to door with Rogers on a recent Monday afternoon. Evan Power, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, has been an outspoken critic of Rogers on social media.
“The question is do you want to allow Bernie Sanders liberals to control the City Commission and the School Board?” Power said in an interview. “Is that where we are as a society? Is that where we are as a city? They’re trying to claim they’re less (liberal) than that as they’re advocating for total control of city government.”
The Leon County Republican Party, which last year urged voters not to support Kristin Dozier in her bid to unseat Mayor John Dailey, isn’t spending money in the city races, Power said.
“It’s interesting to see the Leon GOP’s change of heart after last cycle endorsing a Democrat who raised taxes for mayor,” Ray said. “In terms of the ideological orientation of our community, it’s clearer than ever that Leon County residents do not want to elect folks aligned with Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.”
Porter and Matlow have long made it clear they would show City Manager Reese Goad the door if they had the votes on the City Commission to do it. But Goad has the staunch support of Dailey and rest of the majority, Richardson and Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox.
And while city commissioners are barred from directly supervising the chief of police, Lawrence Revell’s days would likely be numbered, too, if the progressive side were to take power.
During a June candidate forum hosted by the Tallahassee Democrat, WFSU and the League of Women Voters, Inman-Johnson gave Goad an F.
“I feel the city manager is not a good steward of our tax dollars,” she said.
There would be no change in management were the status quo to remain the same, with Richardson and Porter winning their re-election bids. No changes would come either if Ferguson, who’s backed by Dailey and others in the establishment, were to defeat Porter.
During a different June forum, Ferguson gave both Goad and TPD a B, saying it was “so important” to build a relationship with the city manager.
The appearance in the Seat 2 City Commission race of Donna Nyack, a retired nurse and political unknown who moved late last year from Bakersfield, California, to Tallahassee prompted accusations from the Democratic Party that she was “ghost candidate.”
Nyack, who raised only a modicum amount of money for her low-visibility campaign, repeatedly ducked reporters and skipped debates, fueling speculation she was a plant. She denied it in her lone forum appearance in June.
“Oh absolutely not,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m very real and very sincere. I love people. I’m an advocate for people. My 35 years of nursing I believe has qualified me very well for the role. I have no ulterior motives, and I’m not a ghost candidate.”
Matlow, the local Democratic Party and Ray excoriated her on X, formerly known as Twitter, with the latter slamming her candidacy as a “cynical attempt to distort and corrupt our elections.”
The theory was that while the chances of her winning were near zilch, she could throw off the math in a four-person race and prevent one of the top candidates from taking the primary outright, pushing the top two candidates, Richardson and Inman-Johnson, into the a runoff in the general election.
Progressives pointed the finger at Republicans and pro-Richardson forces. But Power told the Democrat that Nyack never reached out to him and that he’s never talked to her.
“I find it odd that the first people to find out about it were Jeremy Matlow and Ryan Ray,” he said. “I think there might be a little projection there.”
On Friday, Ray and the Democratic Party criticized Cox for an anti-Rogers mass text funded by Hold Them Accountable PC, which is chaired by Alex Alvarado, a Tallahassee political consultant who has been linked to ghost candidate accusations elsewhere in Florida. Cox had no comment.
In a 15 minute presentation on X, Ray traced the flow of money from local business leaders to political committees controlled by Alvarado that supported Richardson with ads in 2020. Ray said that links a cadre of Chamber leaders to “ghost candidate operations” in “one of the most circuitous, corrupt schemes I’ve ever seen in Tallahassee.”
Richardson noted that he has been in the Tallahassee community for a half century and served as a School Board and Florida House member and city commissioner.
“I have never participated in that kind of political chicanery and never will,” he said.
The candidates have talked plenty about the issues, including what they would do to address homelessness and affordable housing, growth and development and crime and the economy. Some have tried to move last year’s property tax increase at the city and protracted firefighter pay negotiations to the fore of the community conversation.
But observers say the issues have taken a back seat to the philosophical divide between the warring sides of the local Democratic Party.
“That’s how we’re operating these days,” said Gary Yordon, a television ad producer and former political consultant who’s neutral in the local races. “And then, let the chaos begin and hack away at each other and see who wins.”
He said the two sides are locked in a fight about “one or the other.”
“It’s either we go this way or that way,” Yordon said. “I just think there’s nothing on those two road sides. It’s like we’re at a fork in the road, and all we have is a spoon.”
Vote with confidence: Watch debates and study up on the candidates, issues and races in our online election guide at tallahassee.com.

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