Former Manatee Commissioner Satcher too late for 2026 Congressional bid

When the East County Observer met with former Manatee County Commissioner James Satcher on June 9, he was launching a campaign to earn the Republican nomination to represent Florida’s 16th Congressional District.

On June 11, Satcher drove to Tallahassee with the qualifying paperwork in hand because the deadline to apply was noon June 12 to get his name on the primary ballot. 

However, Satcher came up short on the $10,440 filing fee.

“It was an amount of money that should've been easy to raise,” he said. “Obviously, Sydney Gruters has a stronger campaign than I realized. People are motivated to support her. Nobody even wanted to hedge their bets.” 

Gruters is vying for the seat that Rep. Vern Buchanan has filled since January 2013. Buchanan was elected to Congress in 2006, but the districts were redrawn in 2012. 

Buchanan announced his retirement in January.

Satcher was hoping his Ellenton address would end up in District 14 when the lines were redrawn for the congressional redistricting in April, but his home remains in District 16.

The District 16 seat was Satcher’s first choice of offices before being elected to the District 1 commission seat in 2020. He ran against Buchanan for the Republican nomination in 2016, but the newcomer only received 19.4% of the votes.

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Satcher thought “some level of name recognition” could help him this time around. 

Much of that name recognition came from his controversial appointment to be supervisor of elections in April 2024. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Satcher to the role over Scott Farrington, who had worked at the office for nearly 10 years and is a Certified Elections Registration Administrator and a Master Florida Certified Election Professional. 

Farrington immediately resigned his post to run a campaign against Satcher and succeeded. In the interim, SOE employees publicly criticized Satcher’s performance, and over 2,000 citizens signed a petition to have him removed from office. 

Despite the criticism, despite the loss, Satcher said he's proud that he ran a “good, secure election.”

“That was my No. 1 priority,” he said. “If we didn’t succeed at having a good election, that would’ve been detrimental. But if we ran a good election, we could make the case later that we showed up and did a good job.”

During both of those campaigns — for District 1 commissioner in 2020 and supervisor of elections in 2024 — Satcher had no problem raising campaign funds. But when he couldn’t raise $10,000, he had to accept “the situation on the ground.”

“Ultimately, I should’ve been in the race earlier,” Satcher said. “I believe the Lord told me to run, but when I went to Tallahassee to finalize the application to be on the ballot for Congress, it became clear that 2026 was not the time to put my name on the ballot. I'm praying for our nation and our officials while looking forward to running the race and answering the call the Lord has ahead for me.”