Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson easily dispatched their Republican opponents Tuesday night as Democrats selected their candidates to go up against the well-funded incumbents.
Annette Taddeo, a former state senator from Miami who was the party’s lieutenant governor candidate in 2018, appeared set to take on Ingoglia. She received 66 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Earle Ford in the Democratic primary for chief financial officer, in unofficial results posted by the Division of Elections.
Taddeo vowed to be an independent watchdog “fighting for affordability, holding insurance companies accountable.”
“The fight for a more affordable, accountable Florida is just beginning, and I'm ready to take that fight to every corner of our state,” Taddeo said in a statement.
Ingoglia, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the Cabinet office in July 2025 after more than decade in the Legislature, was well ahead of Frank Collige, a U.S. Air Force veteran and insurance claims investigator from Glen St. Mary. He received 61 percent to Collige’s 31 percent.
“I’m eager to spread our message of a smaller, more accountable government that costs less across the Sunshine State,” Ingoglia added in the statement.
Ingoglia has spent much of this year campaigning for Amendment 3, the proposed property tax cut on the November ballot to help cut local government spending.
Collige, who wanted to restore transparency, protect consumers, eliminate waste, and conduct real audits instead of political spending reviews, spent most of the $19,500 he raised.
Ingoglia, also a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida that has provided staffing and consultant assistance to his campaign, had more than $700,000 remaining from the $1.26 million raised for the primary in his campaign account. Ingoglia is also chairman of two political committees --- Government Gone Wild and Friends of Blaise Ingoglia --- that collectively had $4.4 million available as of Aug. 13.
Taddeo raised just over $100,000 for the primary, of which nearly $44,000 was spent by Aug. 13.
Ford had about $2,000 on hand as of Aug. 13 after raising almost $15,000 and putting another $8,000 of his own money into the contest.
The CFO position oversees the Florida Department of Financial Services and serves as the state fire marshal.
Agriculture commissioner contest
Meanwhile, Joey Mendoza Atkins, a lawyer from Miami, was primed to become the Democratic Party’s nominee to take on Simpson, the former state Senate president and the only member of the current Cabinet to previously been elected statewide.
Atkins, who also describes himself as a sports agent, was up on Don Prichard, a Pembroke Park law enforcement officer and former Broward County Sheriff’s deputy, 60 percent to 40 percent in results posted Tuesday night by the division.
Simpson, a farmer from Trilby who spent more than a decade in the state Legislature including as the Senate president during the 2021 and 2022 sessions, was set to easily fend off the challenge from Matt Taylor of Plant City.
Taylor, who raised more than $280,000 in his bid to unseat Simpson, goes by the moniker Matt the Welder to highlight his working-class upbringing.
Simpson begins the two-month slog towards the general election with $522,000 remaining from the $1.1 million he amassed in his campaign account. Simpson also oversees four political committees --- the Florida Green PAC, Friends of Wilton Simpson, Future Florida and Home Grown PAC --- that as of Aug. 13 collectively held more than $25 million.
Atkins loaned his campaign $8,500, which covered the qualifying fee, and raised $1,700 for the contest.
Prichard’s contributions for the contest sat at just under $30,000, of which $15,500 was his own money.
The Cabinet office oversees the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which manages more than a million acres of state forests, protects Florida’s livestock, is a clearinghouse for consumer concerns, and inspects a wide variety of businesses from gas stations and food processing plants to amusement parks.
The third Cabinet office, Attorney General, bypassed the primary. Neither Attorney General James Uthmeier nor Democratic challenger Jose Javier Rodriguez, a former state legislator and assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor under President Joe Biden, had party challengers.
