Tallahassee City Commission incumbent Curtis Richardson will face off against former mayor Dot Inman-Johnson in November. But some local political watchers believe the runoff is happening because of the presence of what they call a “ghost candidate.”
Donna Nyack registered to run for the commission seat less than a year after moving to Tallahassee. Before the primary election last week, she faced accusations of being a ghost candidate. That means some thought she was running not to win, but to impact how the race plays out for the other candidates. Ghost candidates are usually put up to it by a political consultant.
But in the lead up to the primary, Nyack told WFSU that’s not why she was running.
“I don't feel that every candidate has to do, you know, mirror each other. Just because other candidates, you know, campaign in a way that they do doesn't mean that I have to do it the exact same way. So no, am not a ghost candidate. I am very real. I'm very serious about representing the City of Tallahassee,” she said.
After making that comment, Nyack appeared in one candidate forum. She didn’t hold events. She didn’t raise money from outside sources. She didn’t make social media accounts. She didn’t speak to the press again. Despite that, she got almost two thousand votes last Tuesday, or almost 6% of all those that cast ballots in the race.
Ben Wilcox, Integrity Florida’s research director, is convinced Nyack was a ghost candidate and he thinks she impacted the results of the primary.
“There is only one way to campaign for office, and that's you. You go for it, you try to convince voters that you're the best candidate for that office. And she clearly did not. She made only a minimal attempt to do that. It's not, I would say, a sincere attempt to win an election,” he said.
Wilcox said he’s not sure which candidate benefited from Nyack’s candidacy. Both candidates previously told WFSU they’d never heard of Nyack until she entered the race. But Leon County Democratic Party Chair Ryan Ray, who has personally been supporting Inman-Johnson, has his opinion.
“There's no question in my mind, Republican Donna Nyack was placed into the race by Republican oriented special interest for the benefit of Commissioner Richardson. Full stop.”
Richardson is a registered Democrat, and the contests for local government seats are nonpartisan races. But Ray believes without Nyak, Richardson might have lost his seat.
Inman-Johnson received almost 47% support in the primary. A candidate must receive more than 50% of the vote to win outright. Therefore, Inman-Johnson could have met that threshold if she received most of Nyack’s support.
Additionally, while past numbers show progressive candidates like Inman-Johnson tend to do well in primaries, November elections have been traditionally better for incumbent commissioners like Richardson.
While there’s no bulletproof evidence that Nyack is a ghost candidate, or who could have been behind her candidacy if she was, her impact over last week’s election results is clear.