Incumbent Tallahassee Commissioner Curtis Richardson is facing a difficult challenge from former Mayor Dot Inman Johnson during November’s election, but his cause just got a cash injection.
Political committees supporting him have received thousands from prominent local Republicans since last month’s primary election.
After coming in second during the August 20th Primary, Richardson says his campaign would need to reshape their strategy heading into the general election.
“Apparently, there are some things that we're going to have to do differently and more of probably, but again, we'll have to look at the results and see how things turned out the way they did,” he said.
Well, the political committees supporting his campaign will have the money to retool their strategies thanks to $90,000 from two local Republican businessowners.
Ahead of the primary election, Richardson received thousands in campaign support from two political committees, Grow Tallahassee and Citizens for Balanced Growth. After the primary, Citizens received $75,000 from Jeffrey Phipps, its chair and a local Republican who works in real estate. He gave an additional $50,000 before the primary.
The Ghazvini family, which owns several local construction businesses that have contracts with the city, gave $15,000 to the Grow PC through one of their businesses two days after the election.
That influx gives Richardson a commanding funding lead over his opponent. Between his campaign account and the PC’s, he has over $100,000 lined up to support him, while his opponent Inman-Johnson has $16,000 between her account and the PC supporting her, Tallahassee Commissioner Jeremy Matlow’s One Tallahassee PC.
Ahead of the primary election, Inman-Johnson received an influx of financial support from a progressive leaning group. The One Tallahassee PC, which supported her, City Commissioner Jack Porter, and former school board candidate Jeremy Rogers, received $75,000 from the California progressive advocacy group the Green Advocacy Project. The group has not yet contributed more money since the primary.