What happened?

By John Labriola - A lot of people are asking what happened in Tuesday's election to make Citrus County Commissioners Rebecca Bays and Diana Finegan both lose their reelection bids.

While some are attributing their losses to voters' weariness with overdevelopment, that explanation doesn't make sense given the fact that one of the candidates who lost was seen as pro-development and the other was seen as anti-development. The same is true for the winners, with one having the reputation of opposing developers and the other of supporting them. 

So what was it then? 

Since Bays lost by 9 points to educator Holli Herndon (36 to 45 percent), and Finegan barely lost to Stacey Worthington, it would probably be easiest to start with Bays.

It's a maxim in politics that leaders should reflect the values of the people they represent if they wish to remain in power, but Bays repeatedly betrayed the conservative citizens who make up the vast majority of Citrus County voters. 

In 2023, Bays cast the deciding vote for an unpopular 18 percent tax increase, the same vote taken by former Commissioner Ruthie Schlabach less than a year before voters removed her from office. Bays also repeatedly opposed spending cuts, approved controversial residential developments, and appointed LGBT activists to the Library Advisory Board (LAB), despite residents repeatedly urging the commission not to. When asked at a public meeting why she voted to remove conservative LAB member Elaine Kleid (who serves as the Citrus County Republican Party Secretary) and why she refused to support reappointing her a year later, her response was silence, showing contempt for the person asking the question. After the LAB rejected a motion to create a temporary library book display for assassinated conservative icon Charlie Kirk last year, Bays said she would support naming a road after him, but then did nothing. When asked why months later, she said the issue was just not important enough to spend any time on. 

While any one of these examples on its own would not be enough to establish a pattern of contempt for conservatives, taken together, they paint a clear picture that explains why there was no love lost between Bays and conservatives. 

Only in the last month before the election did Bays begin taking a more conservative tack, even voting to adopt the rollback rate, which she was able to get the county to do because a new state law requires a supermajority to approve anything higher than that. But for voters, it was just too little, too late.

Bays faced two challengers, but the more conservative one – Jennifer Grogan – had very little money or organization and no previous experience running a campaign. It didn't help that the Citrus County Chronicle spent the entire Early Voting period falsely accusing her of lying about reporting a death threat. Ironically, Herndon, who ended up benefiting from Bays' betrayal of conservatives, will be far more liberal than Bays, especially on social issues, since she believes people can choose their own gender.

In Finegan's case, the election was extremely close, with Worthington (who also ran against her in 2022) besting her by less than 400 votes out of more than 38,000 cast. So the real question is why Finegan was so vulnerable. I believe there are several reasons, and any one of them could have been decisive given the close margin.

Finegan built an overall conservative record of advocating for cuts in taxes and wasteful spending, opposing excessive development, and defending the community's conservative social values. But she made several strategic unforced errors, some of which angered her conservative base.

In 2024, a large number of county commissions and city councils in Florida adopted resolutions opposing pro-abortion Amendment 4, which would have forced taxpayer-funded abortion on demand in the state of Florida, but the Citrus County Commission was not among them. When the Citrus County Republican Party passed a resolution urging the commission to do so, and several residents asked Finegan to sponsor it, she declined, citing the resistance she had received from sponsoring an earlier resolution to defend border security. The decision disappointed many pro-life activists, whom she could have counted on for strong support if she had taken a stand, even if the resolution had failed.

A similar dynamic played out over the aforementioned Charlie Kirk issue. When it first came up at a commission meeting, Finegan thrilled conservatives by defending Kirk as a "hero" who deserved a book display, adding that she'd be "more than willing" to add it as an agenda item. But then she did nothing, again causing conservative enthusiasm for her to fall off.

Finally, less than a month before the election, Finegan inexplicably voted against cutting taxes. When Commissioner Jeff Kinnard moved to keep the millage rate the same, she supported his motion instead of joining Bays and Commissioner Janet Barek in opposing it. Bays then made the motion to adopt the rollback rate, which succeeded because of a new state law requiring supermajorities to adopt anything higher than the rollback rate. Finegan eventually supported Bays' motion because no other motion could pass, but why wasn't she leading the charge for fiscal conservatism instead of just following? 

Much has been said about Finegan's short fuse with critics, which was most notably on display in May, when Finegan urged a sheriff's deputy at a commission meeting to arrest Citrus County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Josh Wooten following a minor scuffle with an audience member after he had criticized her at the lectern. While the incident probably didn't help, I wouldn't say it was the reason she lost. 

However, a very important factor that can't be ignored is of course the absence this year of a third-party candidate like Paul Grogan, who in 2022 closed the Republican primary to Republican voters only and allowed Finegan to easily defeat Worthington. This time, Democrats were able to vote in the Republican primary, and they chose Worthington over Finegan. 

But there was something else. A different Worthington emerged this year, one less stiff and more relaxed, who also appeared to have moderated her image and message. And ultimately, it worked.