A Manatee County commission race that could become a key swing vote on issues like new development has attracted a crowded pool of candidates all vying for a two-year term to replace Carol Felts, who died unexpectedly earlier this year.
Felts left behind an unfinished fight against growing development and its adverse impacts on the environment in rural parts of Manatee County, and eight candidates are now competing to replace her in District 1, a sprawling geographic area in the north and eastern parts of the county.
Although each candidate’s approach differs on how exactly to resolve concerns, they mostly agree that traffic needs to be reduced, housing development should slow down or be more carefully considered, and natural resources should be preserved.
One key factor distinguishing them is who is funding their bid to win on the ballot. Some candidates are almost entirely self-funded. Others have raised funds from local individuals and corporations — including development companies. And for Republican Adam Johnson — a notorious participant of the capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 — donations are pouring in from supporters across the United States.
Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said fundraising can be a good indicator of who will perform well in an election, whether those funds come from local voters or not.
“It’s not a guarantee … but statistically speaking, for virtually every office in America, if you raise more than your opponent you do have a better chance of winning,” Jewett said. “The person with more money … can buy name recognition, and they can send out more mailers, and perhaps have a more professional campaign staff to knock on doors.”
Suncoast Searchlight reviewed campaign finance reports and interviewed the race’s top-funded candidates. They include Republicans Leland Taylor, who has outraised the pack with more than $19,000; Elizabeth Arnold, who has almost $17,000; Mark Stanoch, with nearly $16,000; Adam Johnson, with more than $14,000; and the lone Democrat in the race, Sari Lindroos-Valimaki, with more than $3,500.
Here’s a breakdown of each, including where they got their backing and what they plan to do if elected.
Hometown lawyer backed by local business interests
Leland Taylor was born and raised in Manatee County. He worked as an intern in the Florida Legislature before getting a law degree and becoming a criminal defense and family lawyer.
Taylor has raised a total of $19,197, including a donation he gave himself of $437. Many of his campaign donors are local people that he has connected with through his career as a lawyer. Of the 36 donations to his campaign, 14 came from other attorneys.
The majority of Taylor’s donations — almost $11,000 — came from business donors. Aside from lawyers, those businesses include corporations that work in development, real estate, construction and dairy farming. Most of Taylor’s business donors contributed a full $1,000 — the upper limit for how much one business or person can donate to a local campaign in Florida.
“It’s been humbling to have that support from so many folks that were largely local,” Taylor said.
Despite accepting money for his campaign from real estate companies, Taylor said he wants to protect rural areas of the county from overdevelopment by ensuring that any approved projects are in line with the county’s comprehensive plan for future land use.
He also said he wants to ensure the county has the proper infrastructure in place to support growth, like better roads to reduce traffic and a more robust public safety system.
“If we don’t have a safe community, if we don’t have the roads we need, if we don’t preserve and protect our waters and the land around, this place won’t look the same for our kids and grandkids.” Taylor said. “You have to balance those things out with having a sustainable economy, so you can provide services for your community, and public safety.”
Felts' ally carrying the environmental torch
Elizabeth Arnold is a retired executive from Florida Power Corp., where she handled cash management and efficiency and productivity improvements.
Arnold said she was good friends with Felts, and before Felts became a county commissioner, she and Arnold would both regularly attend council meetings to speak out about environmental and development issues. Arnold said she would change almost nothing about the approach that Felts took to her work as a commissioner.
“After she passed, several people, I guess because of my relationship with Carol, asked me to run,” Arnold said. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but I decided that I would because I think that we really need to have a voice like Carol’s on the commission.”
Arnold also said she wants to support farming and maintaining agricultural land, as well as preserving wetlands and preventing additional housing development while improving the county’s infrastructure.
“I don’t want to see more of Manatee basically paved over and destroyed,” Arnold said. “We have a growing problem with flooding. We have a growing problem with water. I think we need to be really careful moving forward about the kinds of things we approve.”
As of May 31, her campaign has a total of $16,750 — including $12,000 in loans she gave herself. The other $4,750 came mostly from Manatee County residents, who she said are familiar with her environmental activism work in the county, except for a $500 donation from an Orlando-based law firm and $53 from a donor in Connecticut.
Arnold raised $14, 741 in the first quarter of the year, and just over $2,000 in the second quarter.
“There are some people that are like me that are fairly passionate about what is and what isn’t going on in Manatee, and they’ve seen me at enough meetings to know that they can count on me to just stay the course, basically,” Arnold said. “They know what they’re buying.”
Business-minded former tech executive
This election isn’t Mark Stanoch’s first time running for a local Manatee County position. In 2024, he ran for the county school board and lost in the general election to Heather Felton.
He said he was driven to run again because he wants to see Manatee County become a place where his kids and grandkids can live and work. That’s the driving motivation behind his top priorities for the county, which include increasing high-paying jobs, decreasing traffic congestion, conserving natural resources and reducing inefficiencies.
Stanoch said if elected, he would focus on bringing more large corporations to Manatee County as a way to increase jobs and decrease traffic congestion, by reducing the number of people traveling outside of Manatee County for work. At the same time, he said he wants to preserve farmland.
According to information published by the county in 2024, agriculture is the economic sector with the second highest impact on Manatee County’s economy, after tourism.
“I am talking development, but I’m not talking housing development. I’m talking economic development, meaning let’s get some factories in here, or let’s get banks, or some kind of businesses that are high paying, non-polluting, and can definitely take advantage of the assets we have,” Stanoch said. “(Carol Felts) was a great steward of our natural resources. I’m going to be a great steward of our natural resources, but for different reasons. For business reasons.”
Stanoch is retired, after spending his career working for technology companies. He was most recently an executive for Dell Computers, where he helped manage the relationship between Dell and Microsoft.
His campaign budget is $15,891. He loaned $15,000 of that money to the campaign himself — $5,000 during quarter one of 2026, and $10,000 during quarter two. The rest came mostly from Manatee County residents.
“I’d rather see money generated from the local people who are going to live with the decisions that are made,” Stanoch said.
Jan. 6 influencer with a national donor network
Adam Johnson is a well-known MAGA influencer who went viral across the country as “Lectern Guy,” after he was photographed holding Nancy Pelosi’s lectern during the capitol riot in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021. He pleaded guilty to one charge related to the capitol riot and was later pardoned by President Donald Trump.
He said he decided to run in the local election as a way to gain experience in the political realm.
“We had considered doing maybe a larger run … but I really wanted to get my feet wet locally in my own backyard,” he said.
He said the main issues that he wants to address in the county are making sure that economic growth is beneficial to residents and that county funds are being spent effectively, with the goal of reducing financial waste and solving things like traffic congestion.
“My initial policy would be to look at what we’re doing with the money that is coming in and make sure it’s being allocated to things that the community actually needs, the first of which is public safety, primarily,” he said.
Johnson has leaned into his Jan. 6 notoriety during his campaign. He’s using an outline of himself holding the podium as the logo on his campaign website. He has promoted his campaign on social media platforms like X, where he uses the name “The Lectern Guy” and has nearly 125,000 followers. He even filed his initial candidacy for Manatee County’s at-large district six seat on Jan. 6, before switching to run in district one after Felts’ unexpected death.
According to reports from quarter one and quarter two of this year, Johnson has raised $14,024 toward his campaign, but only $425 from Manatee County residents.
The other 97% of his funds have come from more than 200 different donors living outside of Manatee County. Nearly three-quarters of that money came from individuals living outside of Florida. Many of the donations are small — 211 of the 248 donations were for $50 or less.
Johnson told Suncoast Searchlight that he believes people around the country are interested in his race because they’re hoping Manatee County can become a blueprint for other local governments to implement MAGA-based policies.
“I find it to be very comforting, and I think other people should as well, that there’s that much support nationally that care about Manatee County and want to see something good happen here,” Johnson said. “People are very excited to see if we can change one backyard. Maybe they can change theirs, too.”
Lone Democrat betting on a divided GOP field
Sari Lindroos-Valimaki, the only Democrat, has also run for a local position before. In 2024, she ran for the at-large district seven seat in Manatee County and lost to Republican George Kruse. She said Felts, who was elected that year to district one, encouraged her to run again.
“Nobody expected this to happen to her. It is absolutely devastating to the community, and well, somebody has to represent the same values she did, and I am not so sure that all the other candidates do,” Lindroos-Valimaki said.
Lindroos-Valimaki, who works in cybersecurity, said her main goal if elected would be to reassess the county’s long-term plan and make sure it can prevent ongoing development from reducing natural land and polluting natural resources.
“We have some really really shady things going on that need to be addressed. I mean, there is such a lack of trust in the governance here,” she said. “We need integrity back in government, and decency.”
She also said she’s hoping that the crowded nature of the Republican primary could help her in the final election.
“They will be splitting their vote, and maybe an undesirable candidate gets to the election … Maybe this is the time that a Democrat will have a chance in Manatee County,” Lindroos Valimaki said. “Yes, it’s a ruby red area, but I actually think I’m a very viable candidate for it, and the district really needs this level of representation.”
Lindroos-Valimaki’s first and second quarter financial reports show that she has raised a total of $3,575 for her campaign, including $1,300 that she loaned to herself. The rest came mostly from individual donors living in and around Manatee County, including a $25 donation from Kelly Kirschner, a Democrat who is running for Florida congress this year, in District 16, which covers Manatee County.
Other candidates
The three other candidates in the race are listed below, along with their party and the amount of money they’ve each raised as of May 31 — including money that they may have given to their campaigns themselves.
- John Dunn (Rep), $1,300
- Michael Harrison (Rep), $708
- Jack May Jr (Write-in), $0
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
