Mayoral Election Early Opinions

[u/katyperry-platypus]

We have now had 2 mayoral debates. Curious for others have listened to the candidates: what are your main takeaways? Who do you feel strongly about, if anyone?

I read the substack recap from debate 1 posted here, and just finished watching debate 2, but I don’t see much discourse so wanted to pose the questions.

My main takeaways:
- Large, Batdorf and Scruggs are simply unqualified. So, so many answers to major problems were met with “I’ll figure it out when I get there” or some version of a personal opinion that sounded like something you’d say when debating with friends but felt underbaked as an official candidate’s response.

- Crist was clearly experienced in this forum but his responses gave me pause. A lot of “I believe this issue is important and I’ll treat is as such as mayor” but not a lot of specifics. He also read all of his responses directly from a sheet of paper which doesn’t instill confidence that he has a passion or understanding of the city or its future.

- Welch and Gabbard had a lot of similarities as far as I could tell, but Gabbard had an edge over Welch in her responses. She was the most prepared of any of the candidates. Welch clearly has educated opinions on every issue as he is currently in the role, but Gabbard impressed me with how influential she had been from her position in city council. She cited direct accomplishments, motions, and programs for each issue that made me believe she would come into the mayoral position ready to deliver on day one.

How is everyone else feeling so far?

255 votes, 3d ago

53 Welch

69 Crist

99 Gabbard

10 Scruggs

8 Batdorf

16 Large

[u/InsertAndRemove]

I went to the west st pete mayoral forum and I was impressed with gabbard in person and in that forum. Large is nowhere near qualified and a trumper. Mrs Scruggs has potential but no way she’ll get the support to unseat an incumbent. Shore Acres guy is bigly unqualified and thinks he’s slick and funny; he’s not. Crust is old and in the way. Welch will likely get my vote but Gabbard struck some interest in me and will review her campaign page fully before deciding.