With so much at stake in Tallahassee’s Mayoral race, we predicted months ago that controversial monopoly utility behemoth Florida Power & Light would intervene hard on behalf of Mayor John Dailey, who’s fighting for his political life after a second-place primary finish against Leon County Commissioner Kristin Dozier.

And here it comes.

Days after announcing an FPL lawyer/lobbyist is now running his campaign after Reggie Cardozo‘s exit following the August primary, some $5,000 was reported on Dailey’s most recent campaign finance report linked to Ryan Tyson, a key figure in Florida’s painful and ongoing “ghost candidate” scandal that saw our state’s political process unconscionably tampered with by perhaps Adams Street’s most special interest.

Judging from how FPL has played in elections across the state, we’re betting this bundle is not the only state-backed ratepayer profits that will benefit Dailey in this race.

Another classic Scott Maddox-era Chamber-developer Leon County political player, Commissioner Nick Maddox, has also started a new political committee — funded almost completely by big developers, County vendor Waste Pro and David Coburn — a major beneficiary of the controversial $27 million Doak stadium deal, which caused an almost unprecedented uproar across all demographics and political persuasions.

Campaign finance reports reflect payments to controversial lawyer-lobbyist Sean Pittman for TV advertising.

We’ll report more on this shortly. But from first appearances, Mayor Dailey is not the only unpopular incumbent big special interests are trying to protect from the grassroots reform wave that’s sweeping Tallahassee — a likely bright spot in Florida’s 2022 elections.

The Florida Squeeze was proud to endorse Maddox’s opponent, public school educator Josh Johnson. Read our endorsement write-up here!

Kudos to Jason Garcia, one of Florida’s finest journalists, for his excellent deep-dive exposé on major corporations feasting on your state tax dollars this week. You can find that story here, and his Twitter thread on the subject here.