Write-in candidates in Escambia Commission District 1 race have ties to Jeff Bergosh

Three of the four candidates running in the Escambia County Commissioner District 1 race have close ties to incumbent Commissioner Jeff Bergosh and their presence in the race could split the vote in his favor.

Bergosh has never won a majority of votes in the GOP primary for County Commission. Because there is no runoff in the contest, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if it's not a majority. In 2016, Bergosh won with 41% of the vote, as 59% of primary voters went for a choice other than Bergosh. In 2020, he won with only 39% of the vote, as 61% of primary voters chose an alternative.

In the opening of candidate qualifying week on June 10, Bergosh was heading to what may have been his toughest election during his time on the county commission with a head-to-head match against Steve Stroberger in an open Republican primary. Then three people, all with ties to Bergosh, jumped in the race.

Jesse Casey, who had been Bergosh's commissioner's aide since 2023, resigned from his county job and filed to run against his former boss, making the primary a three-way race.

Then, two write-in candidates, Justin Smith and Tyler Aulger, filed paperwork to run, which had the effect of closing the primary to Republican voters only. With no other party putting up a candidate, nearly half of voters in District 1 won't get a real choice in who will be their next commissioner. As of June 28, District 1 had 46,389 registered voters, and only 24,258 were registered as Republicans.

Whoever wins between Bergosh, Casey and Stroberger will appear on the November ballot, but voters will not see Smith or Aulger's name on the ballot in November, only an option to write in another candidate. Both write-in candidates have raised no money and do not appear to be actively campaigning.

In November, it's more likely than not that the only District 1 voters who will know about Smith or Aulger's candidacies will be the ones who read this article.

It's a common tactic in local Florida politics to force a closed primary with a write-in candidate. What's unusual in this case is the clear connections to the incumbent in the race.

Leaked text messages from a 2022 backup of Bergosh's cell phone obtained by the News Journal last year show both Smith and Aulger's family have personal ties to Bergosh. Smith campaigned for Bergosh in 2020, and Aulger's father donated $100 to Bergosh's 2024 campaign.

Stroberger challenges Bergosh

The race is the first election in the newly drawn boundaries of District 1 by the County Commission with most of the changes to the district boundaries proposed by Bergosh.

Stroberger, who lives in Innerarity Point, is in District 1 because of those new boundaries. He previously attempted to run in 2022 for District 2, but his house was drawn into District 1 during redistricting in 2021.

Leaked text messages from a backup of Bergosh's phone showed that Bergosh at the time believed Stroberger was a political non-factor as a text message from Bergosh at the time said he believed Stroberger "had no chance to win."

The boundary changes forced Stroberger to drop out of the 2022 race, and he became Mike Kohler's campaign manager, helping Kohler defeat a much better-funded opponent to win the District 2 seat.

After the 2022 race and getting a first-hand look at county government as Kohler's aide, Stroberger said he wasn't planning on running again until he saw the text messages published in the News Journal. Stroberger said he felt he had a duty to run.

Stroberger said after seeing early poll numbers and past election performances, he wasn't surprised someone else jumped in the race.

"He couldn't beat me head-to-head," Stroberger said. "There had to be more people in the race."

Stroberger said he was surprised it was Casey because Casey had told him personally that he wasn't going to run again.

"I asked him (Casey) at the prayer breakfast at Olive Baptist Church if he was going to run again, and he said no, he said he wasn't going to," Stroberger said. "... But I knew somebody was going to get in it."

Casey did not return the News Journal's request to comment.

Now, Stroberger said he is running essentially two campaigns, one against Casey in the Beulah area and one against Bergosh in the Perdido area.

Stroberger said he's working hard to campaign against "Bergosh Inc." as he termed it, and has knocked on 6,300 doors of voters to ask for their vote.

"I am pretty confident that I'm still going to win," Stroberger said. "I've just got to meet more people."

Stroberger served briefly as Kohler's commission aide before filing to run against Bergosh earlier this year.

Kohler said Stroberger was campaigning hard for the seat and contrasted the District 1 commission race with the District 4 race between three Republicans and one Democrat.

"What's going in on District 4 is what democracy is supposed to look like with candidates working for votes," Kohler said. "The District 1 race is like something out of a communist third-world country."

There's no doubt Bergosh is a fierce campaigner, walking door-to-door to meet voters. The leaked text messages showed in 2020 that Bergosh was also paying close attention to the electorate. His messages contain the results of multiple polls in his race to see where he stood with voters during the campaign.

Bergosh told the News Journal he did not ask Casey or the write-in candidates to run and views the situation as making his race tougher, though he said Casey is his tougher opponent.

"I think the danger is someone who has name recognition, campaigns very, very diligently, and has a tremendous fan club of citizens," Bergosh said. "That's your dangerous opponent. I fully expect (Casey) will come in second place. I fully expect it will be a very close race."

Casey runs for the fourth time

Bergosh hired Casey as his commission aide for the last year, but a year later, Casey resigned as county employee to run against his boss for a third time and his fourth time for the office.

Casey has been a perennial candidate in the District 1 race since 2012 and has had strong showings but never enough to win. In 2016, Casey won nearly 30% of the vote, and in 2022, Casey won 31% of the vote.

All of the candidates were contacted for this story, but Bergosh and Stroberger were the only candidates to return the News Journal's call.

Bergosh said he didn't ask Casey to run and that Casey was an honorable man who is popular in the district.

"He is a great person that wants to help people," Bergosh said. "I have nothing negative to say about him. In 2020, he ran again, and I was fortunate enough to win. He called me that night and said, 'Hey, if there's ever a chance we could work together, it looks like we got 70% vote. I'd love to work.' So a few years later my secretary, Debbie, retired, and I called Jesse, and he came to work. He just wants to serve the people, and so he's running for the fourth time."

Any county employee must resign their position to run for a commission seat, and Bergosh said he couldn't speculate on what would happen with Casey's role at the county when the race is over.

"I'm in a tough race, Bergosh said. "Jesse is a formidable competitor. He came in second place the last two times I ran against him. He has a lot of support. I'm not going to look past that. There's a significant chance that he could win the election, so I think it would sound arrogant for me to look past it."

Bergosh also said despite Stroberger's lack of funding, he knows Stroberger is out campaigning and meeting with voters.

"He has the potential to win," Bergosh said. "So I don't look past any of my opponents."

Bergosh said he believed he would have had a better chance in the race in a one-on-one match against Stroberger and said anyone who would say he asked Casey to enter the race doesn't know the district.

"To be very blunt, my best polling numbers would have been a one-on-one, straight-up contest with an unknown individual who frankly is very negative and very caustic," Bergosh said. "And I think my odds would have been much better."

Write-in candidate's ties to Bergosh

The leaked text message shows that in 2020, Smith, who was manager of The Dock at Pensacola Beach, was an avid supporter of Bergosh.

In the messages, during Bergosh’s 2020 re-election campaign, Smith appeared to offer to let Bergosh use a family property on Blue Angel Parkway to display a large campaign sign.

Smith also said he would "handle the Bellview community" to distribute yard signs and work on fundraising for Bergosh, though he doesn’t appear to have made any donations himself.

During the campaign, Bergosh kept Smith informed of internal polling information during his campaign ? something Bergosh did throughout the campaign to family, close supporters and political allies.

Augler also has connections to Bergosh. Aulger is 24 and better known in the golf community as Ty Aulger. Augler is tournament director at First Tee Gulf Coast.

Aulger is a registered Republican and before filing to run in the high-profile race has had no public political activity.

However, Bergosh’s leaked text messages show that Aulger’s family is friends with Bergosh’s family. Numerous messages between Bergosh and Aulger’s father, Todd Aulger, discuss politics, both local and national.

Augler's father also made a $100 donation to Bergosh's campaign in 2023, according to campaign finance records at the Escambia County Supervisor of Election's website.

When asked if he encouraged the write-in candidates to run in the race, Bergosh said no.

"Here's what I'm going to say about the write-in candidates, and I'm going to be very clear with what I say," Bergosh said. "The write-in candidate is 100%, legal, lawful, and it's written in the state statutes."

Bergosh said it was "preposterous" for anyone to say a person should not get involved with the political process in a way that is allowed under the law.

"Some people want to get involved. Some people want to learn how politics work. Some people want to do a write-in candidacy to be a part of the process," Bergosh said. "Who am I to dictate who is allowed to run and who isn't? I'm not. People are free. This is America. This is not Russia. I encourage as many people to run as possible. Frequently, online, I've had critics berate me, and my first response, in many instances, is if you can do better, sign up and run against me. I've said that to dozens of people in my career."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia District 1 Jeff Bergosh tied to write-in candidates