Michele Rayner will run for Florida Senate in 2026

Share
A Florida state rep talking inside a radio studio
Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby inside the WMNF studio in Tampa, Florida on July 21, 2023. / Photo by Ben Montgomery

©2024 The News Service of Florida

Weeks after her reelection to the Florida House, state Rep. Michele Rayner announced she will run for the state Senate in 2026.

Rayner, a St. Petersburg Democrat elected to the House in 2022, is seeking to succeed Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, who will leave Senate District 16 in 2026 due to term limits.

The district is made up of parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Rayner, an attorney, announced her candidacy in a social media post on Monday, pledging to “continue to hold members of the majority party, state and federal government accountable to Florida families, bring resources back to our community, and fight for every Floridian.”

Republicans hold a 85-35 supermajority in the state House, and the GOP also has a supermajority in the Senate.

“I know right now we need leaders who will work to bring our communities together instead of leaders who are fighting for a radical agenda by dividing us,” Rayner posted on X.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

Leatherback Sea Turtle
Sea turtle nesting season is starting this month

Sea turtle nesting season is from May 1st through October...

“Talking Animals”: Callers & emailers are the guests

Occasionally, I jettison the chief component of the "Talking Animals" format...

Talking Animals: Veteran science journalist Stephen S. Hall recounts reporting and research that yielded Slither, singular book on snakes

Veteran science journalist Stephen S. Hall recounts how he approached...

A state legislator, Rep. Anna Eskamani, standing in the Florida state capitol, smiling, an wearing a lavender suit
Orlando Rep. Anna Eskamani talks taxes, the governor, labor, and more

Florida’s 2025 legislative session is going to overtime, but as...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

House of Soul
House of Soul