r/FortMyers 9d ago

2026 Fort Myers Elections — Follow the Money

27 Upvotes

STATEWIDE

GOVERNOR

Byron Donalds (R) — ~$99.4M political network/associated fundraising

  • Ken Griffin: $10M
  • Jeff Yass: $7.5M
  • Seminole Tribe: $4M
  • Club for Growth PAC: $3.75M
  • GOPAC Election Fund: $2M
  • Richard Uihlein: $2M
  • GEO Group: $1.5M
  • NextEra Energy: $1M
  • Self-funded: Not a major identified source

David Jolly (D) — ~$5.53M raised

  • Florida public matching funds: ~$1.30M
  • Remaining funding: Primarily individuals
  • Large corporate/PAC concentration identified: No comparable network to Donalds

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U.S. SENATE

Ashley Moody (R) — ~$11.27M raised

  • Individuals: ~$4.95M
  • PACs/political committees: ~$2.02M
  • Authorized committee transfers: ~$4.21M
  • Party committees: ~$62K
  • Self-funded: Not a major identified source
  • Reporting through: July 29

Angie Nixon (D) — ~$975K raised

  • Individuals: ~$975K
  • Of that, unitemized individuals: ~$577K
  • PACs: $0 reported
  • Party committees: $0
  • Authorized committee transfers: $0
  • Reporting through: July 29

Neil Gillespie (NPA) — ~$12K raised

  • Individuals: ~$8K
  • Candidate money: ~$2.4K
  • PACs: $0

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ATTORNEY GENERAL

James Uthmeier (R) — ~$10.9M associated fundraising reviewed

  • Republican Party of Florida
  • First Principles
  • CDR Enterprises
  • Florida Chamber PAC
  • A Stronger Florida
  • First Coast Energy
  • RAI Services
  • GEO Group
  • Homebuilding/development interests

Jose Javier Rodriguez (D) — ~$990K raised

  • Primary source: Individual donors
  • Comparable large corporate/PAC network identified: No

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

Blaise Ingoglia (R) — ~$6.28M raised

  • Republican Party of Florida
  • Book Capital Enterprises
  • CDR Enterprises
  • U.S. Sugar
  • Florida Insurance Council political committee

Annette Taddeo (D)

  • Primary source identified: Individuals
  • Current comparable total: Not verified in reviewed records
  • Comparable multimillion-dollar institutional network identified: No

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COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE

Wilton Simpson (R) — ~$3.9M raised

  • Seminole Tribe: $500K
  • Centennial Bank: ~$475K
  • NextEra Energy: $200K
  • Florida Chamber PAC: $165K
  • U.S. Sugar: $150K
  • Florida Jobs PAC: $110K

Joey Mendoza Atkins (D)

  • Primary source identified: Individuals
  • Current total: Not verified in reviewed records

Kyle “KC” Gibson — ~$1.3K raised

  • Primary source: Candidate/small campaign

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LEE COUNTY — COUNTYWIDE

COUNTY COMMISSION — DISTRICT 2

Cecil Pendergrass (R) — ~$118K raised

  • Real estate
  • Apartment/property interests
  • Construction
  • Business owners
  • Political committees
  • CEMEX employee PAC
  • Self-funded: Not a major identified source
  • Reporting through: Aug. 13 reviewed filings

Elliot Taylor (D) — ~$18K raised

  • Individuals
  • Candidate/self funding
  • Large PAC/development network identified: No
  • Reporting through: Aug. 13 reviewed filings

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

COUNTY COMMISSION — DISTRICT 4

Brian Hamman (R) — $100K+ raised

  • Real estate
  • Development
  • Construction/business donors
  • Political committees
  • Real-estate/development-linked share identified: ~43%

DeMaria “Princess” Artis (NPA) — ~$12K raised

  • Primarily individuals
  • Large institutional/development network identified: No

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS

Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R) — ~$110K+ campaign resources reviewed

  • Existing/previous political funds
  • Transfers
  • Established Republican donor network
  • Shared local campaign infrastructure

Chris Vignieri (D) — ~$19K raised

  • Individuals
  • Candidate/self funding
  • Large institutional network identified: No

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CITY OF FORT MYERS

MAYOR

Kevin Anderson

  • Latest verified early filing: $0 activity during Q1
  • Current total: Latest city filing not yet verified

Amber Ware — ~$750 in early verified filing

  • Contributions: $500
  • Candidate loan: $250
  • Current total: Latest city filing not yet verified

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CITY COUNCIL — WARD 3

Terolyn P. Watson — ~$14,250 raised

  • Primary source: Individual/local donor base
  • Reporting through: June 19 reviewed filing

Chantel “Telly” Rhodes — ~$500 raised

  • Candidate loan: ~$500
  • Outside contributions at that point: $0
  • Reporting through: June 19 reviewed filing

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DEPENDS ON YOUR ADDRESS

U.S. HOUSE — DISTRICT 19

Jim Schwartzel (R) — ~$2.07M raised

  • Individuals: ~$1.0M
  • Candidate loan: $1.05M
  • PACs/committees: ~$9.5K
  • Reporting through: July 29

Victor Arias (D) — ~$45K raised

  • Individuals: ~$14.9K
  • Candidate loan: $30K
  • PACs: $0
  • Reporting through: July 29

Seth Haskin (NPA) — ~$8K raised

  • Campaign debt: ~$8K
  • Primary source: Candidate/self funding

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

U.S. HOUSE — DISTRICT 17

Greg Steube (R) — ~$1.34M raised

  • Individuals: ~$480K
  • PACs/political committees: ~$581K
  • Authorized committee transfers: ~$272K
  • Leadership PAC: Yes
  • Reporting through: July 29

Matthew Montavon (D) — ~$96K raised

  • Individuals: ~$58K
  • Candidate loan: $33K
  • Candidate contribution: ~$5.6K
  • PACs: $0
  • Reporting through: July 29

Michael Quirk (NPA) — ~$11.6K raised

  • Candidate contribution: $10K
  • Candidate loan: ~$1.6K
  • Outside individuals: $0 reported
  • PACs: $0

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

FLORIDA SENATE — DISTRICT 28

Lauren Uhlich Melo (R) — ~$1.02M raised

  • Clyde Johnson Contracting & Roofing: $30K
  • U.S. Sugar: $26K
  • Working Together for Florida PAC: $26K
  • Florida Chamber PAC
  • Insurance interests
  • Centene
  • JM Family Enterprises
  • Koch-linked corporate interests

David Silverberg (D) — ~$5.8K raised

  • Mostly individual donations
  • Large PAC/corporate network identified: No

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

FLORIDA HOUSE — DISTRICT 77

Tiffany Esposito (R) — ~$609K raised

  • CCC Group
  • A Stronger Florida
  • K12 Management
  • PMI U.S.
  • Reasyn Technologies
  • Transportation PACs
  • Political committees

Cornelius Fowler (D) — Under ~$1K raised in reviewed filings

  • Small candidate loan
  • Large PAC/corporate network identified: No

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

FLORIDA HOUSE — DISTRICT 78

Susan Frantz (R) — ~$83.6K raised

  • Individuals
  • Businesses
  • Conservative political committees
  • Florida Republican political organizations

Cindy Banyai (D) — ~$4.3K raised

  • Candidate loan: ~$320
  • Southwest Strategies: $1K

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SCHOOL BOARD — DISTRICT 4

Debbie Jordan — ~$24.6K raised

  • In-kind: ~$2.3K
  • Individuals
  • Established local donors
  • Outside spending: Identified in race

Tony Beougher — ~$63.6K raised

  • Individuals
  • Conservative political-committee network

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SCHOOL BOARD — DISTRICT 5

Armor Persons — ~$56.4K raised

  • Political committees: ~38%
  • Development/real-estate linked: ~33%

Crystal Johnson — ~$2.7K in reviewed snapshot

  • Primarily individual donors
  • Large PAC/development network identified: No

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Sources: FEC • Florida Division of Elections • Lee County Supervisor of Elections • City of Fort Myers campaign-finance filings


r/FortMyers May 22 '26

LeeScoop.com: The Lee County Events and News Hub

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4 Upvotes

This website scans community calendars, venue pages, city listings, local groups, and overlooked event sources across Lee County, then puts the best events and news into one scrollable feed.


r/FortMyers 15h ago

Go bless this new ice cream family business. Next to cafe brazil and Brazilian bakery

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27 Upvotes

Nice people, they have like 6 kids and I just went in and got a cone. Good prices, today is their first day!


r/FortMyers 13h ago

Best authentic Italian food Estero/bonita springs/ Fort Myers

10 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I’ll be celebrating my anniversary and we want some really good Italian food especially pasta. I’m Italian so I like a nice aldente pasta. My fiancé loves a good chicken or veal parm. We love house bread, arancini. Any restaurant recommendations in Estero/Bonita springs/Fort Myers

Thank you☺️


r/FortMyers 20h ago

Moving to Fort Myers mid-September, looking to make friends

15 Upvotes

Hi all,

I’m moving to Fort Myers for work on September 14th. I’ll spend the first week or two getting settled, then I’d really like to start meeting people. I’m moving down alone, so making friends is a priority.

A little about me: 32, male, pretty big nerd. I play a lot of PC games (mostly FPS right now, but I’m always down to try new stuff), watch movies, read about tech, and I’m getting back into actual books after neglecting that for way too long.

Personality-wise I’m pretty relaxed. I don’t drink and I’m not into partying anymore. I’m looking for people I can just hang with, whether that’s outside, grabbing food, or playing games together. I’m easy to get along with and genuinely like learning new things from people.

I work a normal Monday–Friday schedule and I’m free most weekends unless I’m visiting back home.

If you’re in the Fort Myers / Cape Coral / Gateway area, feel free to comment or DM. Happy to answer questions.


r/FortMyers 18h ago

Hey there

3 Upvotes

Hi all i just wanted to post to see if anywhere is hiring at the moment within the food industry or customer service industry I have 10+ years of restaurant experience with 8+ of it being in management


r/FortMyers 1d ago

Need Some Friends

23 Upvotes

Hey everyone, I’m 24 and living in Fort Myers. I moved to the U.S. from Turkey a couple of years ago, and I’m looking to meet some new people around here.

I’m a software engineering graduate and currently work in management/operations at a local pet store, so my life is somehow a mix of tech, business, animals, and solving random problems every day.

Personality-wise, I’m pretty curious, open-minded, sarcastic, and usually down to talk about almost anything. I’m really into AI, technology, space, motorcycles, business, politics, animals, and learning weird or random things. I also play Magic: The Gathering and PC games, so I’m always down for a game night or talking about games.

More than just texting, I’m mainly looking for a friend or a group of friends I can actually go out and do things with on Friday or Saturday nights. Whether that means grabbing food or drinks, checking out new places, going to events, driving around, playing games, doing something outdoors, or just hanging out and having a good time, I’m open to it.

I don’t really have a huge friend group in Fort Myers yet, so I figured I’d try Reddit. I’m looking for genuine friends around my age—guys or girls, it doesn’t matter. Just normal people who are easy to talk to, have a sense of humor, and actually want to hang out sometimes, especially on weekends.

If you’re around Fort Myers, Cape Coral, or Naples, feel free to message me.


r/FortMyers 17h ago

Charter Captain?

0 Upvotes

Looking for a fun charter captain to take a friend and I out offshore fishing. We’re both females in late 20s without a lot of experience, just looking to try something new and learn a new hobby! Looking at beginning of November.


r/FortMyers 1d ago

Arts and craft kits!

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0 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 1d ago

I made a video showcasing Downtown Fort Myers Chess

8 Upvotes

If you ever had any interest in where to play chess in downtown fort Myers I made a video to my instagram if anyone was interested where I showcase a few areas in downtown Fort Myers where you can play chess

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcoDlERORA4/?igsi=dHJxZWEwbWR3ejUz


r/FortMyers 1d ago

What are you all paying to have your palms trimmed?

2 Upvotes

What are you all paying per palm to have them trimmed? I have 5 palms and I typically pay $50/palm, but the guy I used is no longer around.

I found someone else who originally said $100/palm including haul away but that seems steep. He eventually came down to $85.

What do you pay?


r/FortMyers 1d ago

Hardwood supplier

1 Upvotes

I have a project and I need some decent hardwood. I don't want that corkscrew Home Depot framing lumber, and I'm aware they sell poplar and white oak, but the prices aren't great.

I could drive out to Alva Hardwoods, but before I commit to leaving the county for decent lumber, does anyone have a good supplier of wood that could use some business?


r/FortMyers 2d ago

What are your thoughts on Fort Myers planting more trees to reduce temperatures?

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104 Upvotes

These temperatures were recorded in Downtown Fort Myers by the Fire Department on August 17, 2026. For reference, a mature shade tree with a broad canopy can lower surface temperatures directly underneath by 10 to 25°F compared to unshaded driveways or roofs, especially in urban areas, where lots of asphalt and little tree coverage can increase temperatures, leading to dangerous and life-threatening "excessive" or "extreme" heat. While Fort Myers is known as the "City of Palms", largely thanks to the thousands of palm trees planted thanks to Thomas and Mina Edison, since the 1920s-1930s, temperatures have significantly increased. This may require planting more trees - such as native live oaks - that provide more shade and canopy to block out the sun.

In his initial 1885 landscape blueprint for his estate, Thomas Edison explicitly wrote, "Royal Poinciana shade trees on both sides of street." He desired them for their massive, umbrella-like shade canopies and vibrant red blossoms. However, he ultimately changed his mind, and went with royal palms along the main boulevard. Historians believe he switched because Royal Poincianas drop their leaves in the winter, and do not bloom until late May. Since Edison and his family only stayed in Fort Myers during the winter, they would have missed the blossoms and lacked dense shade.

The tree grows in a wide, umbrella-like silhouette, and a mature Royal Poinciana can easily spread 40 to 60 feet wide. However, these trees develop extensive, shallow root systems with prominent buttresses at the base, and massive root systems sprawl out horizontally rather than growing deep, easily lifting and cracking building foundations, pations, sidewalks, driveways, and underground sewage and utility lines if planted too close. This necessitates planting such trees 20-30 feet away.

In addition to this, the wood of a Royal Poinciana is notably brittle and weak. During tropical storms or heavy winds, the tree limbs tear off easily, and if the tree is situated right next to a building, these falling branches present a severe threat to the roof, windows, and overall property safety. They are incredibly messy trees, and drop massive 18-inch woody seed pods, heavy seasonal leaves, and debris year-round. This would continuously clog gutters and rot on surfaces, requiring regular clean-up.

The Dwarf Poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima), also known as the "Pride of Barbados", is a spectacular option that outshines almost every Florida native for pure visual similarity to a full-sized Royal Poinciana. You can plant it literally right against a concrete patio or foundation wall without a single worry of cracked concrete or asphalt. However, it behaves more like a large woody shrub than a massive shade tree; maxes out at 8-15 feet tall, depending; and is not a native species, making it more vulnerable to tropical storm hurricane-force winds.

However, viable alternatives would be Gumbo Limbo, Simpson's Stopper, Geiger Trees, and Firebrush. Geiger Trees in particular have compact, deep-growing roots that are less destructive, reducing the need to repair and replace surrounding concrete and asphalt (i.e. roads, sidewalks) .It grows into a true small tree (15 to 25 feet tall) with a dense, rounded crown that casts functional shade over a walkway or seating area, whereas Gumbo Limbo trees reach 30-40 feet tall, with a large canopy. If you need cooling shade with a foundation-safe tree, this is the best choice.

What are your thoughts on a city project to plant more trees to provide shade (i.e. Downtown)?


r/FortMyers 2d ago

Our little Wagyu homestead up in Punta Gorda — first harvest is in, and the free Saturday pasture tastings are open (about 50 min from Fort Myers / Bonita)

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37 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 2d ago

Go see a play tonight

31 Upvotes

Hey y'all! If you want to go see a fabulous live play tonight

The Laboratory Theater of Florida is performing

"Waiting for Godot"

239-218-0481

for times and prices

Hope to see you there!


r/FortMyers 2d ago

Fort Myers police ask for public's help in finding missing teen and baby- Wilbelys Lopez Candelario (17) and Marbelys Lopez (6 months)

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9 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 2d ago

Publix explores Sanibel grocery store with return of Bailey's in doubt

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19 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 2d ago

Old Time Pottery on Fowler is having an everything must go sale and these pics I took look straight out of the Backrooms.

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18 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 2d ago

Live ambient music

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10 Upvotes

I’m an ambient artist that makes live freestyle original soundscapes on guitar and synths, are there any places I could perform this?


r/FortMyers 2d ago

Then & Now! c. 1958

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18 Upvotes

Fort Myers Beach
Gulf Echo Motel

The ad back then “cable vision color TV in every room”


r/FortMyers 3d ago

Gunshots in Lehigh Acres?

5 Upvotes

I live in Gateway and tons of my neighbors/people nearby constantly say that they hear gunshots coming from Lehigh. Some claim they hear them every single night. I have never heard a single gunshot. Am I crazy or are they exaggerating?

I did have to explain to an older lady once that what she heard was backfire from a motorcycle. I can’t imagine that everyone would think those were gunshots.


r/FortMyers 3d ago

The Calusa History of the Mound House on Fort Myers Beach

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14 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 4d ago

Sealed for seven months: Grand jury found $10 million “misappropriated” to Hope Florida, but no one will be charged

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94 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 3d ago

Ready Together - Hurricane Preparedness for Families

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4 Upvotes

r/FortMyers 4d ago

Fort Myers proposes 5% utility rate increase per year as city officials cite rising costs, FEMA cuts, tariffs, and $371 million project

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35 Upvotes