On the first day of candidate qualifying week, one thing was decided for sure: With three mayoral candidates already qualified, Pensacola will have an Aug. 18 mayoral election.
Noon on June 8 marked the opening of the qualifying week in Florida, the period when political candidates file paperwork to officially qualify to appear on the ballot.
As of 3 p.m., 18 candidates had qualified through the Escambia County Supervisor of Elections Office for their names to appear on the ballot in local county and city races.
Pensacola mayor’s race
In Pensacola, three of the six declared candidates filed in the first hours of the qualification period. Former City Council member Ann Hill and community activist Jermaine Williams are two of the candidates who qualified to unseat current Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves, who also qualified on June 8.
Pensacola’s elected city offices are officially nonpartisan, but if three or more candidates qualify, then the city has its first round of voting during the primary elections, which will now be the case this year for the mayor’s race.
Three other candidates, Jasmine Brown, Alicia Trawick and Eric Shorter, have until noon on Friday to file the paperwork and fees to qualify. Trawick has already submitted the 2,018 voter petitions needed to have her fees cut by 75%. Hill was the only other mayoral candidate to successfully meet the petition requirement.
With the mayor’s race now officially set to occur on Aug. 18, the campaign will become a battle to turn out voters, as turnout is usually lower during the primary election than during the general election.
In 2022, countywide turnout was only 29.6% in the primary, and while some city precincts reached nearly 50%, the citywide number was only 36%. In the general election the same year, countywide turnout was nearly 52%.
Reeves won his first term as mayor outright by securing more than 50% of the vote from the 36% of city voters who came out for the primary election and avoided a head-to-head runoff.
The question for 2026 is whether Reeves will be able to pull that off again, or, more likely, face a tougher one-on-one contest against one of his challengers in a much larger general-election voter base.
Pensacola City Council races
Three other city council seats are up this year, but unless something changes before the qualifying period ends, only two of them will be on the ballot.
District 6 City Councilwoman Allison Patton has no challenger, and if none qualifies before noon on June 12, she’ll be deemed automatically reelected to a second four-year term.
For now, the District 2 and District 4 seats will be on the ballot in November, but if one more candidate qualifies, then the races will be moved up to Aug. 18.
District 2 Councilman Charles Bare is being challenged by his predecessor in the seat, former City Councilwoman Sherri Myers.
District 4 is an open seat with Councilman Jared Moore declining to run for a final term, and candidates Brian Cole and Boyce White having both qualified for the race.
Escambia County races
With the exception of the school board, county-level races are partisan, and the two incumbent commissioners are facing challengers.
District 2 Commissioner Mike Kohler is facing a challenge in the Republican primary from Glenn Dorsey. While Mathious Robinson is the only Democrat in the race, he hadn’t qualified as of June 8. Robinson had met the voter petition requirement, so qualifying will only be a matter of filing the correct paperwork.
District 4 Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger isn’t facing any challenge from fellow Republicans, but she is facing a likely challenge from Joe Vinson, a non-party-affiliated candidate.
Hofberger qualified on June 8, while Vinson had met the petition requirement but hadn’t officially qualified in the first few hours. If Vinson qualifies, the race will be decided during the general election in November.
Escambia County School Board District 3 member David Williams will have to fend off a challenge from Isaac Williams. Both qualified on June 8. District 1 and District 2 school board incumbents Kevin Adams and Paul Fetsko both qualified, but their respective challengers Erin Toler and Gerald Washington hadn’t yet filed paperwork.
The elected seat on the Santa Rosa Island Authority also had only one qualified candidate as of June 8: Steven Luppert.
It’s not uncommon to see last-minute candidates enter or even candidates change races, so the full list won’t be final until noon on June 12. The News Journal will have the full list of names once it’s finalized, and continuing coverage of local races throughout the summer and fall.
The deadline to register to vote or change your party affiliation in the Aug. 18 primary election is July 20.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola mayor’s race set for Aug. 18 as qualifying week kicks off
Reporting by Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY Network
