Former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn says he's running again in 2027
Former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn at St. Leo University on April 24, 2025. (Photo from St. Leo's University)
The former mayor of Florida's third biggest city says he wants to return to finish the job.
Bob Buckhorn led Tampa from 2011 to 2019 before he was term-limited from office. Now, nearly two years away from the next election, he says he wants back in.
'Tampa has more chapters to write and to the extent that I can be helpful I will, ' Buckhorn told the Phoenix in a text message on Thursday night. 'It was a job that I loved and the opportunity to lead this city and finish the job would be an honor.'
The 66-year-old Democrat won re-election for mayor by gaining 95% of the vote in 2016, sparking speculation that he would run for Florida governor in 2018. But he announced early in 2017 that, with two teenage daughters at home, 'the timing for me and my family would be a challenge.'
There is precedent in Tampa for former mayors running again for office. Dick Greco was elected at three different times as mayor and just barely missed making a run-off for a fourth term in 2011 (losing by fewer than 400 votes to Buckhorn).
Among Buckhorn's likely opponents is Tampa City Council Bill Carlson, a noted foe of Buckhorn and sitting Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. Carlson told the Phoenix that he is working on a plan and will announced his candidacy 'when the time is right.'
'The community is clearly saying they want to move on from the Castor/Buckhorn era and move toward a positive, collaborative vision that's focused on people, not buildings,' Carlson said.
The Tampa mayoral election will take place in March 2, 2027.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump uses LA protests to redirect dissent from policy failures to the ‘enemy within'
Donald Trump walked out to a thunderous standing ovation as Kid Rock's American Bad Ass boomed from the sound system. He watched martial artists slug it out behind a chain-link fence. A female champion let the US president try on her gold belt. It was a night of machismo, spectacle and violence. Shortly before he joined an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday night, Trump had signed an order deploying 2,000 national guard troops to Los Angeles, where protests sparked by sweeping immigration raids led to clashes between authorities and demonstrators. Related: US national guard arrive in Los Angeles after protests over immigration raids The White House said Trump was sending in the guardsmen to 'address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester' in California. Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said the move was 'purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions'. Experts said it was the first time in 60 years that a president has activated a state's national guard – a reserve military – without a request from its governor. Critics also saw it as an authoritarian flex by a strongman president who has relentlessly trampled norms and burst through guardrails. Since returning to office in January, Trump has sought to crush dissent at cultural institutions, law firms, media companies and universities. Many believed it was only a matter of time before he took the fight to the streets. The protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids present him with an antagonist that can be used as a focal point for anger, hatred and fear, ensuring that dissent is redirected away from the government and toward 'an enemy within'. Trump is the master of distraction and, with the help of lurid rightwing media clips, wants to divert attention from policy failures and his ugly feud with Elon Musk. Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator, tweeted: 'Important to remember that Trump isn't trying to heal or keep the peace. He is looking to inflame and divide. His movement doesn't believe in democracy or protest – and if they get a chance to end the rule of law they will take it. None of this is on the level.' As with much else in his scorched earth second term, Trump advertised this in advance. Last October he told Fox News: 'I always say, we have two enemies. We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.' He added: 'We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by national guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can't let that happen.' There are echoes of 2020 when Trump used national guard troops in Washington to quell Black Lives Matter protests that arose after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers. The troops fired teargas to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square near the White House to allow Trump to stage a photo-op at a church. The former defense secretary Mark Esper later revealed that Trump asked about the protesters: 'Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?' Trump and his rightwing allies have been busy rewriting the history of 2020 as a flashpoint when rioters brought carnage to US cities. Yet their narrative omits Trump's conspicuous failure to activate the national guard in response to his supporters' attempt to overturn his election defeat by laying siege to the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Cory Booker, a Democratic senator for New Jersey, told NBC's Meet the Press programme on Sunday: 'We are now at a point where we have a president who sat back and did nothing as people stormed our Capitol, viciously beat police, and then when those people – who viciously beat police and led to some of their deaths, therefore cop killers – were convicted by juries, he then pardoned them all. 'So for him to be talking to anybody right now about responsible law enforcement to protect people is hypocritical at best.' Now California – a Democrat-dominated state regularly invoked by Trump and his allies as a hive of 'wokeness' and immigration lawlessness – is the ideal target for Trump to whip up the fervor and resentments of his base. The government is deploying the national guard 'not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle', Newsom wrote on social media. 'Don't give them one.' In a sign of how much has changed from his first term, there are no Mark Espers to push back this time. Instead the current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, threatened to involve regular military forces, writing that active-duty marines at Camp Pendleton were on high alert and would also be mobilized 'if violence continues'. And Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and architect of Trump's draconian immigration crackdown, posted messages such as 'We will take back America' and 'Insurrection' – the latter raising the spectre of Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, one of the most powerful emergency powers at the disposal of a president. The 18th-century wartime law would allow Trump to deploy the military on US soil against civilian protests, evoking parallels with autocratic regimes around the world that declare martial law. Again, the president has teed up a preview: on Saturday tanks will roll on the streets of Washington for a parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US army. It also happens to be Trump's birthday.
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Reaction to Trump's crackdown on LA protests splits sharply on party lines
Unrest in Los Angeles has become a microcosm of US political divisions on immigration enforcement operations, with political leaders offering vastly different interpretations of the Trump administration's deployment of national guard troops and the mass targeting of undocumented communities. The divide over the same events came into full view when the California Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters was denied entry to an LA detention center over the weekend, with Marjorie Taylor Greene, her Republican colleague from Georgia, mocking her on social media. 'Maxine Waters is big mad she got turned away by ICE when she went to go check on her CRIMINAL ILLEGALS!!' Greene posted on X, comparing Waters' situation to her own denial of access to the DC jail to visit 'AMERICAN CITIZENS being held in solitary confinement.' Related: Los Angeles gears up for fourth day of protests against immigration raids Greene later added: '2,000 National Guard is not enough for the LA insurrection and Democrat led war on America!!!' The exchange crystallizes the demonstrable split over the politicians: Democratic lawmakers condemn what they characterize as cruelty and federal overreach, while Republicans defend Trump's actions as necessary law enforcement. The California Democratic senator Adam Schiff urged restraint from protesters, warning on social media that 'violence is never the answer' and cautioning that attacking law enforcement officers 'plays directly into the hands of those who seek to antagonize and weaponize the situation for their own gain'. On the other hand, Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, posted 'deportations have never sounded better'. Several thousand protesters have so far gathered around federal facilities and city hall in Los Angeles, with demonstrations spilling on to freeways and disrupting traffic throughout downtown – with instances of law enforcement officers shooting non-lethal bullets at an Australian reporter and a British news photographer, heavy clashes with law enforcement, and setting fire to autonomous vehicles. It is unclear how many national guardsmen have actually been deployed, but the Los Angeles police department declared the downtown area an unlawful assembly zone early on Monday morning. The Florida Democratic congressman Darren Soto criticized the administration's immigration enforcement sweep, arguing that 'American citizens are even getting snatched up just for looking Hispanic' and that 'due process has also been largely ignored'. But Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio branded the demonstrations 'a violent uprising in defense of criminal illegal aliens', declaring that 'President Trump is absolutely right to restore law and order.' Eli Crane, a Republican congressman from Arizona, mocked California's leadership over the chaos, while the California Republican Darrell Issa accused Democrats of believing 'enforcing our immigration laws should incite people to attack Ice agents and riot in the streets'. Democrats fired back with accusations of federal tyranny. Former vice-president Kamala Harris called the national guard deployment 'a dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos' and part of a 'cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic'. The California Democratic congresspeople Sam Liccardo and Lateefah Simon focused on supporting immigrant communities. Liccardo warned that Trump's actions risk 'pushing our nation down a dangerous path toward tyranny', while Simon said that immigrant communities 'are not alone' and vowed to protect community rights. The senior Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal condemned 'weaponizing the military against US citizens and immigrants alike'. The enforcement battle in Los Angeles has created an unusual dynamic where state and federal law enforcement agencies operate in the same area with different mandates, contributing to confusion and escalating tensions on the streets. But the confusion, mixed with Trump's heavy-handed approach, is causing some Democrats to echo calls for non-violence. 'If you are protesting please do it peacefully,' the California Democratic congressman Mike Thompson posted on X. 'We do not need to give this President and his administration any excuses to further escalate the situation.'
Washington Post
26 minutes ago
- Washington Post
The Latest: Gov. Gavin Newsom to sue Trump over National Guard deployment
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, told MSNBC that he plans to file suit Monday against the Trump administration to roll back the National Guard deployment , which he called 'an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.' This appears to be the first time in decades that a state's National Guard was activated without a request from its governor.
