Views expressed r mine only.
Sarasota, Florida
Joined May 2009
- Tweets3.1K
- Following790
- Followers572
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. @JoeGruters made the call & we finally got the anti-endorsement we've been waiting for. THANK YOU @realDonaldTrump FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!
#Floridians know who's ACTUALLY "reckless, radical, & dangerous" and #FL16 will vote to address that on 11/3.
If the big guy's paying attention, they know they're on the ropes. SO SAD!!
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
Interesting news in CD 16, @KellyKirschner in the first two weeks of October outraised @SydneyGrutersFL.
She's spent $1.37M to his $615K, so it may be too little too late. But on 10/14, he had $261K cash to her $252K.
Question is if outside money for Gruters crushes that edge.
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
Please don't let an unlimited flow of dark money determine your vote. Tired, predictable attack mailers leaning into fabricated culture war narratives are no substitute for thoughtful research and comparison.
They only believe these will work because they don't respect you or your intelligence and they're trying to peal off those they can easily manipulate into voting against @KellyKirschner for Florida CD16 with well-funded scare tactics.
Don't be conned into voting against your own best interests.
Full explanation in the new substack:
georgekruse.substack.com/p/m…
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
A small segment of my discussion about who @KellyKirschner really is from a recent podcast.
This is why we need Kelly representing all of us living in CD16, and all of you living in Florida, up in DC! 🇺🇸
youtu.be/TomuaNXQEe0?is=ubrF…
“4 forty years, we’ve been taught to look at the ppl inside our government as the problem. We’ve spent enormous energy blaming, controlling and fighting them. All that energy, all that talent, going into the struggle instead of the work.” #letsFixThis
tampabay.com/viewpoints/2026…
Thank you Manatee County Commissioner Dr Bob McCann. #LetsFixThis #fl16 #Republicans4Kirschner thebradentontimes.com/storie…
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
Yay !
Great ad for @KellyKirschner !
If you’re in Vern Buchanan’s Florida district ( FL-16) , don’t let Sydney Gruters ( yup , Joe’s wife) snooker you. She’s in the pockets of developers like Pat Neal and a devotee of trump.. who has made your life increasingly less affordable
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
NEWS
The Republican panic is on clearest display at the various political organizations in Washington charged with spending hundreds of millions of dollars on House races. GOP lawmakers from around the country, many in deep red seats, are approaching super PACs with polls showing them losing or on the brink of being down.
Meanwhile, Democratic PACs are swimming in data showing opportunities in seats that were never on their radar. The map keeps expanding into deeper red territory.
Democrats have seen evidence of margin-of-error races in Indiana’s 5th District, GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz’s district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points; New York’s open 21st District, which Trump won by 21 points; Nevada’s open 2nd District, which Trump won by 14; and Kentucky’s open 6th District, which Trump won by 15.
Democrats have also seen evidence of tighter-than-usual races in North Carolina’s 3rd District, GOP Rep. Greg Murphy’s seat that Trump won by 14; North Carolina’s 9th District, NRCC Chair Richard Hudson’s seat, which Trump won by 16; and Nebraska’s 1st District, Rep. Mike Flood’s seat, which Trump won by 13 points.
Both parties have polls with Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Ala.) in a tight race against Republican State Rep. Rhett Marques in an Alabama district Republicans redrew themselves. Sydney Gruters, the wife of RNC chair Joe Gruters, is also in a tight contest with former Sarasota, Fla., Mayor Kelly Kirschner, in Florida’s 16th District. Kirschner vastly outspent Gruters on TV this week.
Republicans have started spending in South Carolina’s 1st District, where GOP candidate Jenny Costa Honeycutt is trying to hold outgoing Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) seat. Also in play is GOP Rep. Brad Finstad’s southern Minnesota district that Trump won by 12 points. Democrat Jake Johnson is giving Finstad a tough challenge.
☀️ AM: THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN PANIC HAS SET IN
Inside the House Republican Conference, there’s panic, anger and resignation.
The political environment is “certainly toxic for Republicans,” said Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), a 13-year veteran of Congress.
Voters “were promised things in ‘24, and none of those things are really coming to fruition,” Joyce added. “My thing has always been, just be truthful with folks. Don’t go out there and tell them that it’s rosier than what it is.”
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), locked in one of the toughest races in the country, is puzzled by one dynamic: why did his leadership pretend this election would be good for Republicans when history says otherwise?
“It’s an historical precedent that is rarely defied,” Fitzpatrick said of losing the majority in the midterms. “Moreover, a second midterm is historically more challenging than the first … Look at when history has been defied. After 9/11 — a major, major event that completely changed our country. In order to buck history, there has to be a reason history is bucked. Those factors are not present.”
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
A Super PAC, heavily funded by Friends of Joe Gruters (~$1.2mm in 2026 with most of that in the past 90 days), along with developers, US Sugar, private equity execs, and Trulieve, is dumping money on scare-tactic, culture war attacks on @KellyKirschner in the finals weeks of the Florida #CD16 election.
Got a mailer from this group yesterday implying Kelly wants drag queens to teach in schools. 🙄
So, a PAC, that’s supposed to be independent of the candidate, is being funded by the spouse of the candidate.
Their polling must be terrible right now.
GOP group spending $600k on TV opposing Dem Kelly Kirschner in #FL16 (Trump+14) against GOP nominee Sydney Gruters, wife of RNC chair Joe Gruters.
I may be wrong but I think this is the first major spend by either side here in the general, although there have been smaller buys.
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
I sat with the @BradentonTimes on their podcast yesterday to discuss why Florida Republicans need to vote for common sense and good governance this cycle.
We spoke specifically on my endorsements and support for three critical votes on the ballot November 3:
@davidjollyfl for Governor (start - 0:27)
@KellyKirschner for FL CD16 (0:27 - 1:00)
Local impact of #Amendment3 (1:00 - end)
Link to podcast ⬇️⬇️⬇️
thebradentontimes.com/storie…
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
Over at @PunchbowlNews they’re discussing the inflow of funds to CD16 as the RNC rightfully worries about the strength of the @KellyKirschner campaign as we hit the final three weeks of voting!
Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Rays! ⚾
The Yankees may have the bigger payroll, but money doesn’t win games. Talent, preparation, and execution do.
In FL-16, we face a similar financial playing field against Sydney Gruters and her dark $ PAC supporters.
The Rays opened 2026 with an $88.7 million payroll, 26th in baseball, coming off a season spent in a spring training park after a hurricane tore apart the roof at Tropicana Field.
They clinched the AL East anyway. The Mets spent $352.2 million, almost four times as much, and were eliminated.
Tampa has done this for so long that it barely registers anymore. It should.
Different playing fields. Different budgets. Same underdog spirit and solid reminder: Money isn’t everything.
@kenbabby
@RaysBaseball
@Fla_Pol
#raysup #letsFixThis
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
Just a reminder that the Trump Administration is currently pushing forward a proposal to reduce FEMA reimbursements to states from 75% of disaster costs to only 50%
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
I got ahold of some polling earlier today. Not only does it reflect an incredibly tight race for Florida CD16; it shows just how critical it is for everyone to be an informed voter at a time where heavily-funded campaigns can spread misinformation through texts, the mailbox, and even the media.
Summary and polling info in the linked Substack.
@KellyKirschner
georgekruse.substack.com/p/i…
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
NYTimes: Private School Vouchers are higher cost, less effective as a strategy for student outcomes. What happened to “accountability for taxpayer funded education?”
In Florida we spend more on private school vouchers (closing in on $5B) than any other state, and it’s not close.
What are the most effective methods of improving student achievement? An NYT investigation.
For me, the data point in the bottom left quadrant is absolutely critical to understanding why student achievement goes wrong so often: teachers making up their own curriculum.
nytimes.com/2026/09/28/upsho…
Humble & proud to have the support of Bowzer and millions of American retirees as we seek to fix critically important issues like ensuring the stability of social security for every individual who paid into the plan. Thank you @JonBowzerBauman for coming to #FL16 #letsFixThis
In my time in Florida we @SSWorks PAC endorsed several great candidates.
One is @KellyKirschner in FL-16, an open seat centered in Manatee County.
This Georgetown grad is the real deal, former Mayor of Sarasota running against unqualified Sydney Gruters, wife of the RNC chair.
Kelly Kirschner retweeted
If you’re in Vern Buchanan’s FL-16 district in Florida , you can’t let this happen
“Naming rights to nothingness. Sydney Gruters' campaign is backed by more than $200,000 from development interests — including Carlos Beruff and his wife, who maxed out their federal contributions right after she resigned as head of the New College Foundation, where Beruff and Pat Neal had pledged $1.5 million.
New College's "Field of Dreams" ballfield, bearing a donor's name, sits on ground where oaks were felled and mangroves mangled. Now Beruff wants to do it again: his "Sea Spray" project would fill three acres of one of Sarasota Bay's last natural shorelines at Long Bar Pointe, disrupting mangrove hydrology so badly that Suncoast Waterkeeper is fighting it — while Beruff's fix is to buy mitigation credits at a preserve 100+ miles away instead of repairing the damage here.
As a state senator, Joe Gruters voted for SB 180 — sold as hurricane relief, now used by developers like Beruff to block local wetland and growth protections. He's using it to challenge $14 million in Manatee County impact fees for roads, parks, and public safety, and lobbyists for him and Neal quietly killed a legislative fix to the law this year.
When land-use policy is written for donors instead of communities, residents inherit the flooding, pollution, and permanent loss”
The only choice is @KellyKirschner .. the only one with a proven track record .Stop electing people who are ruining our counties while enriching themselves with developer money that is irreversibly taking away our natural resources
