Woman in a blue suit holding a microphone inside Florida' legislative chamber. — Tampa Democratic Rep. Dianne Hart Credit: Photo via State of Florida

Like all of Tampa’s municipal races, the special election for District 5’s city council seat is nonpartisan, but the Bay area’s shifting voting demographics weren’t lost on Rep. Dianne Hart as she discussed an upcoming candidate forum Hillsborough’s Democratic Black Caucus is hosting next month.

“Anytime you have nine Democrats in a race, you are going to split up the vote,” Hart, who was first elected to Florida’s House of Representatives in 2018, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

The special election—happening in the wake of the tragic death of Councilwoman Gwen Henderson last month—ends on Sept. 9, with early voting running Sept. 4-7. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election between the top two vote getters will be held Oct. 28.

The race for District 5’s seat includes four Republicans. Asked about the possibility of a runoff between two card-carrying members of the GOP, Hart said, “I would be sick.”

Expect to hear more about that when Hart moderates a discussion with Democratic candidates coming face to face with her caucus at a forum set for Aug. 14.

Angela Birdsong, President of the Hillsborough County Democratic Black Caucus, told CL that four candidates have confirmed their attendance: Former Hillsborough County Commissioner and Tampa City Council member Thomas Scott, East Tampa politico and community leader Fran Tate, Naya Almaz Yong, the former Executive Director of the Tampa Heights Junior Civic Association, and businessman Albert Cooke.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that anyone running in the special election will get a chance to weigh in the current budget discussions Tampa City Council members are part of right now. “So whoever gets elected is going to have to hold the other six council members accountable to whatever it is they said they were going to do,” Hart added.

Still those candidates will have to grapple with questions about a far-reaching district that stretches west-to-east from Tampa Heights to parts of the end of Broadway Avenue and north-south between parts of Riverhills to Harbour Island.

Housing, parks and recreation, and hurricane response are topics that will come up, but one that Hart won’t touch is what it might mean if a Black person does not end up winning the seat.

District 5 is also Tampa’s only majority-minority district, and as far as CL knows, has never been represented by someone who wasn’t Black.

Crowbar owner Tom DeGeorge, his fellow Ybor City business owner Darrell Ashley Dudney—two of three non-Black candidates—told CL that they would attend the Aug. 14 forum.

Audette Bruce, a campus pastor at Revive Church is the other non-Black candidate and will obviously not be at the forum since it is only open to Democrats. Bruce appeared at a July 8 District 5 forum hosted by the Hillsborough County Republican Party alongside the race’s other two members of the GOP: Elvis Piggott and Melony Williams.

Another Black Republican, Alison Hewitt, Executive Director of the Central Economic Development Center, filed to run in the Tampa City Council District 5 election on July 10, according to documents from the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.

Don’t count on Hart to broach the race topic as moderator.

“I will not be asking any personal questions, because I don’t want anybody to feel like I’m playing, ‘I gotcha.’ That is not what this is about,” Hart told CL, adding that she’s sure someone in the audience will address that issue. “I won’t have anything to do with asking them, ‘What do you think about taking the only Black access if you were to win?’”

With just under 44,000 active registered voters in District 5, turnout will be a huge factor in the race—but the numbers are still on Democrats’ side.

As Florida Politics points out, Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 17,000 according to voter registration data with the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections office. “Even if all of the more than 10,000 independent voters sided with the GOP, conservative voters would still be outnumbered,” the website added.

There’s no cover for the Hillsborough County Democratic Black Caucus’ District 5 candidate forum happening Thursday, Aug. 14 at the C. Blythe Andrews Library in Tampa.

The caucus’ form is one of many opportunities the community has to get a feel for the candidates.

This Saturday, July 26 is Candy Lowe’s Tea & Conversation: Tampa City Council District 5 roll call happening at Al’s Finger Licking Good Soul Food in Ybor City.

Tampa’s Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1464—in collaboration with the West Central Florida Labor Council—will also host a candidate screening in Tampa on July 26.

On a still-to-be-determined date next month on WMNF Tampa 88.5-FM, this reporter, together with former Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder and Florida Phoenix Senior Reporter Mitch Perry, will also co-host an on-air forum with candidates who qualify.

To officially qualify for the special election ballot, according to the city charter, applicants must pay a qualifying fee equal to 5% of the salary (roughly $3,750). A fact sheet from the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections points out that the qualifying fee would be $4,511.52 because an additional 1% election assessment is required by the State of Florida. Another way to qualify is to submit petition signatures from 0.25% of the population of the city of Tampa by Aug. 1. UPDATED 07/23/25 Updated to show that two more candidates would join the forum, and that one was cannot due to their party affiliation.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.