Governor race rivals share their priorities

Demings, Clarke and Panepinto are the top contenders

The major candidates for Orange County mayor fell from four to three last week, setting up a battle for the powerful office this August among the sheriff, a county commissioner and a businessman.

Bill Sublette, Orange County school board chairman, surprisingly pulled out of the race Wednesday, leaving Sheriff Jerry Demings, Commissioner Pete Clarke and businessman Rob Panepinto as the top contenders.

The race is officially nonpartisan, but party labels and backing do still matter. Candidates’ parties aren’t listed on the ballot, and they and their campaigns can’t use party labillion. bels.

But parties and outside groups are under no such restraints, and Democrats are free to point out that Demings is a fellow Democrat in a county where they have a registration edge over Republicans of more than 120,000 voters. Republicans, meanwhile, can let their voters know that both Clarke and the relative political newcomer Panepinto are Republicans.

At stake is “the most important local office in Central Florida,” said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida. The mayor not only has a vote on the commission, he said, but is also expected to lead a government overseeing more than 1 million people with a yearly budget of $4 Demings, 58, the first of the major candidates to announce in July, has been the most successful fundraiser so far, having raised more than $332,000 by Dec. 31, according to the county Supervisor of Elections.

“We’re a third of the way to where we want to be,” Demings said. “We have a number of months left to raise money, and for me, this will probably be about a $1.5 million race. We feel pretty good about where we are and our odds of winning the race.”

Dick Batchelor, a former state House member and now a Democratic consultant, said “the Demings brand,” which includes both Demings and his wife, former Orlando Po-