Thirty-six minutes after polls closed Tuesday, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch conceded to challenger and former Florida Gov. and U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist.
With all of the city’s precincts counted, Crist dominated with 62% of the vote compared to Welch’s 38%.
Crist, 70, will be the next mayor of the city he’s called home since he was 3 years old. He starts a new chapter of a storied political career that launched in St. Petersburg four decades ago and peaked with his time as governor from 2007 to 2011.
Welch stood to lose by a wider margin than when he was first elected. He won the 2021 race, becoming St. Petersburg’s first Black mayor, with 61% of the vote.
“To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven,” Welch opened his speech, quoting the Bible. “It was a blessing for me to serve as mayor of my hometown for a season, for an extended season of five years, and we hoped for an extension of that service for one more term. But the voters have made a clear choice, and they selected a different mayor to move us forward.”
Crist hosted his election night watch party at The Birchwood ballroom in downtown St. Petersburg. Packed with 100 guests including former Mayor Rick Baker, state Sen. Darryl Rouson and City Council members Lisset Hanewicz and Gina Driscoll, the party morphed into a full-blown celebration.
Michelle Todd Schorsch, the chairperson of the political committee backing Crist’s bid for mayor, introduced Crist as the “mayor-elect” around 7:30 pm. Crist slowly made his way up to the stage as ACDC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ played before beginning remarks focused on thanking his backers.
He spoke about how special St. Petersburg, where he spent his childhood, is to him and how he appreciated the opportunity to run in a nonpartisan race. He also thanked Welch, his opponent.
“I want to thank him for serving and offering himself up to serve,” Crist said. “I want to think him for running a decent race.”
Crist’s fiancée, Chelsea Grimes, led a “We are St. Pete” chant.
“It’s another great day in St. Petersburg,” Crist said as he left the stage, concluding remarks that lasted about five minutes.
Welch, 62, held his party at the renovated Manhattan Casino with about 50 supporters, dressed in his campaign colors of green and orange. In a more muted celebration, supporters discussed the races across the state and nation.
Welch saw his hopes for a second term take a hit after his legacy project, a stadium and redevelopment deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, fell apart.
Crist ran a nostalgia campaign that touted his time as the quarterback of St. Petersburg High School and his past job as general counsel to Minor League Baseball, which was headquartered in St. Petersburg. Keeping the Rays in town is among his top priorities, though Tampa and Hillsborough County have a deal in place to build a stadium on Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus.
He attacked Welch on his failures, from nixing a deal to bring a Moffitt Cancer Center to downtown St. Petersburg to being the mayor who’d let the Rays leave town in 2029. Crist has been light on specifics for his own plans and vision but promises to do a deep dive before his inauguration in January.
By the election, Crist had raised over $2.75 million, a record for the city. He won the endorsements of every living former mayor, Republican and Democrat.
Welch spent three years putting together a deal with the Rays to build a replacement stadium, going further than any mayor before him, only for the team to pull out following Hurricane Milton in 2024. A casualty in that storm, he pushed for the successful restoration of Tropicana Field that hosted World Series home games.
He pivoted to boosting the city’s water and sewage systems in the wake of those storms. A referendum to create a new property tax to accelerate those projects is on track to pass overwhelmingly.
“The plan was approved but not the architect,” Welch said election night.
Welch faced criticism for his hurricane response, for not being present at City Hall and in the community and for doling out illegal bonuses to city employees. (He later retracted those bonuses.) Residents endured a rash of out-of-whack water bills and a backlog of permits to rebuild after the storms.
That showed in the August primary results, which Welch described as a “five-against-one” primary. The mayor finished second with 21% of the vote, barely making the runoff. Crist led with 35% of the vote.
Crist said he ran for mayor at the behest of friends, whom he declined to name, who were dissatisfied with Welch’s leadership.
After a resounding loss to Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2022 governor’s race, Crist retreated to Minnesota with his fiancée, Chelsea Grimes. He established residency in St. Petersburg on the last day possible to qualify to run for the office.
Skeptics have questioned why a political animal like Crist, who was vetted to be John McCain’s vice presidential running mate in 2008 and considered for an ambassadorship under President Joe Biden, would decide to run for mayor. Crist has leaned on his executive experience, people skills and coalition building as proof, he said, that he can do a better job.
