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Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR ST. PETERSBURG -- The mayor's race was Rick Baker's to lose, and with a giant assist from Donald Trump, that's what happened. The [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Just in case you thought former Republican/former independent/former governor/former finalist for vice president/former U.S. Senate candidate/former washed-up politician/current Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist's [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Adam Putnam's 2018 gubernatorial campaign has been in the works for years, and the Republican agriculture commissioner has amassed $11 million in his [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; ALEX LEARY; TIMES STAFF WRITERS Time for a few snapshot generalizations about Florida's 2018 gubernatorial race, based on the money raised by the candidates' political committees [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR For 25 years Goliath Davis has been a central issue in St. Petersburg's mayoral races. It started in 1992, more or less, when [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR In politics, timing often trumps skill. Marco Rubio likely would not be in the U.S. Senate had he sensibly shied from challenging then-Republican [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Adam Putnam's campaign for governor is piling up money and is poised for a formal kickoff this week. But Florida House Speaker Richard [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR With so much hostility between Gov. Rick Scott and Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, we've heard speculation that Corcoran could be preparing to [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn's announcement last week that he won't run for governor in 2018 means there is a good chance Florida voters [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Jeb Bush nailed one thing during his clunky presidential campaign. 'He's a chaos candidate, and he'd be a chaos president,' Florida's ex-governor said [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran has been on a roll lately, generating headlines about standing up for taxpayers and transparency against the lobbying [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR DAYTONA BEACH -- When the first, sleepy stretch of Interstate 4 opened between Plant City and Lakeland in 1959, no one dreamed that [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; ALEX LEARY; TIMES STAFF WRITERS TAMPA -- Nothing is more valuable in the waning days of a campaign than a candidate's time. And looking at the [...]

Byline: JEREMY WALLACE; ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES STAFF WRITERS ***** (10/31/2016) NOTE TO READERS: Some readers may have been stumped trying to find the remainder of the Buzz column that [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR ORLANDO -- What's a genteel, chamber of commerce, establishment Republican like Susie Wiles doing on a campaign like Donald Trump's? Longtime admirers of [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH Republican incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio remains favored to win a second term against Democrat Patrick Murphy, but for the first time in a couple of months, [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR It's time for Hillary Clinton to start worrying about her Florida campaign. Despite roughly 500 full-time staffers spread across the state to help [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Marco Rubio says he intends to serve out a full U.S. Senate term if he wins re-election and is not eyeing another presidential [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor PHILADELPHIA -- Florida Democrats gathered in Pennsylvania this week may have been focused on electing Hillary Clinton in 2016, but they also witnessed [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor At noon on June 24 we finally will know who for sure is running for Marco Rubio's U.S. Senate seat and who is [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR U.S. Rep. David Jolly is a leading candidate in Florida's crowded Republican Senate primary. So what has he been up to lately? - [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Simone Ward, former national political director of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, will be the new Florida state director of Hillary Clinton's campaign, [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR TAMPA -- As far as we know, only one candidate for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat has publicly spoken of killing someone. Only [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; ALEX LEARY; Times Staff Writers MIAMI -- Tuesday night it seemed that the news could only improve for Marco Rubio, as he lost big in Michigan, [...]

Byline: ALEX LEARY; ADAM C. SMITH; Times Staff Writers MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Donald Trump stormed back into the national spotlight by winning the New Hampshire primary Tuesday and Democrat Bernie [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; PATRICIA MAZZEI; Times/Herald Staff Writers RIVERVIEW -- Slowly, quietly and doggedly, the presidential campaign ground armies are rumbling into action. 'Florida is going to be a [...]

Byline: ALEX LEARY; ADAM C. SMITH; Times Staff Writers U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, a rising star in Florida politics, is not rushing to plot her next move in light of [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TONY MARRERO; TIMES STAFF WRITERS A giant game of musical chairs for Florida politicians is underway, with Republican U.S. Rep. David Jolly jumping into the U.S. [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor U.S. Rep. David Jolly, R-Indian Shores, is likely to jump into Florida's wide-open 2016 U.S. Senate race next Monday or Tuesday. Neither he [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor Jeb Bush began to 'actively explore' a presidential run six months ago, and the plan was to raise so much money and show [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, an Ivy League-educated military veteran and favorite of tea party conservatives, became the first prominent Republican to announce his [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor Thirteen months after winning a Pinellas County congressional seat widely expected to go Democratic, U.S. Rep. David Jolly, R-Indian Shores, is taking a [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Scrambling the GOP field for Marco Rubio's U.S. Senate seat, state Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater has done an about-face and is telling [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; ALEX LEARY; TIMES STAFF WRITERS Vern Buchanan and Will Weatherford are both looking at the 2016 U.S. Senate seat likely to be vacated by Marco Rubio [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor You might have seen Gov. Rick Scott recently talking to you in a TV ad - 'We are expanding our industries, investing in [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Even with an expected haul of at least $1 million and more than two dozen Tampa Bay Republicans pledging to deliver at least [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor An open U.S. Senate seat is usually a once-in-a-generation opportunity for ambitious politicians. With Marco Rubio moving toward a presidential run and vowing [...]

Byline: ALEX LEARY; ADAM C. SMITH; Times Staff Writers Tricia Rivas had never written to an elected official, but gripped with emotion, she composed an urgent email to Florida Gov. [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR As Florida Democrats continue their perennial soul searching over how they lost another critical election, most of the talk from the Charlie Crist [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Tampa businesswoman Kathleen Shanahan, the Republican fundraiser, activist and former chief of staff to Jeb Bush, named no names in a recent column [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; MARY ELLEN KLAS; MARC CAPUTO; KATHLEEN MCGRORY; Times/Herald Staff Writers SUN CITY CENTER -- With TV ad spending topping $104 million in Florida's record-shattering, nail-biter of [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR It's tighter than a rusty bolt on a '55 Ford, closer than Lassie and Timmy, hot enough to peel house paint. A new [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democrat Charlie Crist are locked in a dead heat race for governor in the final weeks of the [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor BRANDON -- Republicans need not be cowed by the prospect of taking on Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016, said U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; STEVE BOUSQUET; Times Staff Writers Those recent robocalls to Democratic voters featuring the voice and the conservative views of former Republican Charlie Crist have prompted Democrats [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR Jeb Bush says he hasn't made up his mind about running for president in 2016, but the overwhelming verdict from 121 of Florida's [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor SEMINOLE -- If life were a Frank Capra movie no doubt Mark Bircher would be on his way to Congress to succeed the [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor In a bad sign for Charlie Crist's fledgling gubernatorial bid, his hotshot new campaign manager has left the team. Bill Hyers, fresh off [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; Times Political Editor ORLANDO -- You'd think after making thousands of 'For the People' TV ads for his law firm, John Morgan would be more than [...]

Byline: ADAM C. SMITH; TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR TAMPA -- What would possess a lifelong Republican like Bonnie McCreadie to show up at a campaign organizing session for a candidate who [...]