It's Fentrice Driskell Vs. Michele Rayner In One Of The Legislature's Most Competitive Primaries

By Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

August 11, 2026

One of the most interesting state legislative primaries taking place on Aug. 18 is the race for the state Senate District 16 seat in the Tampa Bay area between Democratic state Reps. Fentrice Driskell and Michele Rayner.

The district encompasses the downtowns of two of Florida’s biggest cities — Tampa and St. Petersburg — with the majority of the seat located on the Hillsborough County side of Tampa Bay.

Driskell is term-limited after eight years in the Florida House, the last four as Democratic leader. Rayner was eligible to run for one more term after being elected in 2020 but seized the opportunity to serve in the Legislature’s upper chamber, with Sen. Darryl Rouson being term-limited out of office.

The district leans strongly Democratic, and because no Republican has entered the race, it is an open primary, meaning that Democrats, Republicans, and independents are all eligible to vote. The primary will determine the winner.

For many Democratic voters, it’s not an easy call.

“I would ask voters to vote for me over my opponent because I believe that this district deserves a fighter who will show up and get the job done,” Driskell said in an interview on WMNF-88.5 FM radio in Tampa. “You know, former state Sen. Janet Cruz used to say she’s a workhorse, not a show horse, and I feel a bit similar.”

“Between our records, I feel like there’s no comparison in terms of the impact and the amount of bills that I’ve gotten passed, the appropriations that I’ve brought home to the district,” Driskell added. “The leadership experience that I have leading this caucus and being someone who has led the fight against the extremism wrought by Ron DeSantis and the Trump administration. I’m ready to serve Day One.”

A civil rights attorney, Rayner makes her case by noting her work representing the family of Markeis McGlockton, an unarmed 28-year-old Black man shot and killed in a Clearwater parking lot after a physical dispute over parking in a handicapped space in 2018. The man who killed McGlockton initially went unarrested by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department after the shooter invoked Florida’s “stand your ground” law. He ultimately was convicted of manslaughter and received a 20-year prison sentence.

“I’ve stood up for our community,” she said Friday during her own interview on WMNF. “One of the very few lawyers, along with Benjamin Crump, who took on the stand-your-ground law and won, and so the body of work has been very, very clear from day one. So, I don’t shy away from hard fights.”

She added: “People are tired of Democrats that are just the same. People are tired of folks who don’t represent their values. For the last six years, I’ve worked incredibly hard to make sure that I’ve represented the values of people not just in the district, but also the people of the state of Florida as well.”

About those endorsements

Both candidates have received plenty of top-name endorsements, but Rayner released a press release last month attesting that 22 Democratic House members had endorsed her, about two-thirds of the caucus. That’s despite the fact that Driskell has been the caucus’s leader for four years.

Driskell attributes some of that lopsided support for her opponent to the fact that Rayner entered the race seven months before she did, “so a lot of those endorsements are very old.”

“Once I filed, some of those members co-endorsed me and I happened to know that some of those members actually maybe did not endorse my opponent,” Driskell said. “Maybe she might be overstating some of those.”

Rayner fired back, saying, “There’s a reason that there’s not one Black woman in the House or in the Senate Caucus” backs Driskell. “It’s the lack of being able to work with folks. It’s the lack of being able to be principled.”

Driskell insists that as leader of the caucus, she “chose to put the work of our team first, and did not pressure people into choosing a side when I knew we had to spend months working together for the good of Floridians.”

She continued: “While my opponent is free to express her concerns about my leadership style, which I wholeheartedly dispute, she voted for me to lead twice. And only one of us has spent the last four years working non-stop for the good of the caucus as a whole.”

The Phoenix reached out to some of the House Democrats listed by Rayner as having endorsed her. One of them, Rep. Jervonte Edmonds from West Palm Beach, said he was backing Driskell, not Rayner.

“I have respect for Rayner, but I wholeheartedly endorse my leader,” Edmonds told the Phoenix in a text message.

Broward County Rep. Mike Gottlieb said he has co-endorsed both candidates.

“I have respect and admiration for both,” said Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani. “Michele Rayner filed first and had my early support in hopes of preventing a primary so the focus would stay on the general.”

The campaign had mostly run civilly until a political committee called People for Honor Project sent out mailers to voters in the district accusing Rayner of having a “real Republican record.”

That’s despite the fact that the left-leaning Rayner has been labeled Ron DeSantis’ “worst nightmare” and has touted being the first “openly Queer Black woman” to serve in the Florida Legislature.

Rayner suspects the motivation for the mailer is that she voted to oppose a bill last session to regulate data centers (SB 484). The measure would require the Florida Public Service Commission to develop tariffs and service requirements for electric utilities “to reasonably ensure that each large load customer bears its own full cost of service and that such cost is not shifted to the general body of ratepayers.”

Critics (including DeSantis) contended the measure had been watered down, however, because the House ultimately removed a provision restricting local governments from entering nondisclosure agreements involved in potential development of data centers.

The People for Honor Project PAC received a $31,500 contribution from Fort Meade LLC, the company seeking to develop a data center in Lake Meade in Polk County. That’s three times the amount ($10,000) Fort Meade LLC contributed to Byron Donalds PAC for governor.

“It’s interesting that this particular data center gave more to this PAC than they gave to Byron Donalds,” Rayner said. “So, you’re more afraid of me coming into the Legislature than you love Byron Donalds.”

Legislative records

When it comes to legislation passed, Driskell is particularly proud of her work on lost, unrecorded, and abandoned Black cemeteries, improving treatment for people with sickle cell disease, and a bill passed a year after the George Floyd uprisings that created minimum standards training for law enforcement.

Perhaps Rayner’s signature piece of legislation was the 2024 measure prohibiting children under 14 from becoming social media account holders and allows 14- and 15-year-olds to become account holders only with parental consent.

Rayner said she “took some heat” from some Republicans and fellow Democrats for her co-sponsorship of the bill, but believes the fact that other states and now other countries have followed suit showed she was on the right track.

Going into the last week of the campaign, Driskell maintained a fundraising lead. In terms of cash on hand, Driskell had around $118,000 combined left in her main campaign account and her two political committees. Rayner had less than $7,000 in cash on hand in her main campaign account and political committee.

Associated Industries of Florida, which labels itself the “The Voice of Florida Business,” has contributed a total of $40,000 to one of Driskell’s PACs. She recently received $2,500 from Meta Platforms Inc., a California tech company that operates Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Among some of Rayner’s most notable contributions to her PAC are $5,000 from Equality Florida Action PAC and $10,000 from Coalition for Better Care PC, chaired by Tallahassee lobbyist David Ramba.

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