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Republican Schock relying on support from outside Hillsborough in county commission race

 
Tim Schock is seeking the Republican nomination for the District 6 Hillsborugh County Commission seat. [Courtesy of Tim Schock]
Tim Schock is seeking the Republican nomination for the District 6 Hillsborugh County Commission seat. [Courtesy of Tim Schock]
Published Aug. 25, 2016

TAMPA — On the surface, it seems Republican Tim Schock is hitting his stride at the right time in his bid for Hillsborough County's open commission seat.

Shock has nearly closed an early fundraising lead by his opponent, former state Senator Jim Norman, who boasted a six-figure haul in the campaign's first two months. Schock won two recent straw polls over Norman conducted by Hillsborough business groups, and his fliers are hitting the mailboxes of thousands of voters just as they head to ballot box on Tuesday.

His campaign finance reports, though, show Schock is still struggling to win local support — at least financially.

Of the $94,000 Schock has raised since filing to run last September, $36,000 is his own money. And from the remaining $58,000, half came from donors who live outside Hillsborough County.

In the District 6 commission race, a number of candidates have contributed to their own campaigns. Norman has contributed $5,500 and all four Democrats in the primary have, as well, at some level. They are former Plant City Mayor John Dicks, Tampa lawyer Pat Kemp, former commissioner Tom Scott, and transportation activist Brian Willis.

But Schock's ratio of donations from non-Hillsborough zip codes stands out. All the other candidates in the race receive at least 80 percent of their financial support from within the county they hope to represent.

Schock said there's an imbalance because he's relatively unknown here. He finished a distant second to Al Higginbotham in a four way primary for a different countywide district in 2014, but otherwise is new to politics.

He's also not a Tampa Bay area native. Schock is from Minnesota and moved to Tampa with his wife, who grew up around here. Friends and family from back home and from around the country provided the seed money for his campaign.

That explains why $20,000 of his donations are from outside Florida, he said.

"My name recognition last September was in single digits so a lot of those early contributions were coming in from family," Schock said. "When you look at someone who has been at it their whole career, they're going to have that base that's local."

Indeed, of the $116,000 Norman has raised, $94,000 came from Hillsborough addresses. Longtime supporters like Shea Hughes, son of the late developer Ralph Hughes, and conservative activist Sam Rashid, contributed thousands of dollars to Norman through their companies.

The $29,000 Schock raised from Hillsborough donors is less than anyone else in the race except Dicks, who has brought in $24,000 from the district. After Norman, Willis has received the most from county contributors at $81,000.

Schock is banking that dollars don't always translate to voter support, and that a lingering taint from Norman's past ethical controversies has generated more negative name recognition than positive for the former county commissioner.

Norman signed an admission of guilt in 2012 after the Florida Commission on Ethics ruled that he should be prosecuted for failing to disclose a $500,000 gift Hughes gave to his wife to purchase an Arkansas house. The episode forced Norman to drop his bid for re-election to the state Senate.

Still, Norman has never lost a race when he was on the ballot, dating back to his first foray into Hillsborough politics when he ran for county commissioner in 1992. He has been reaching out to his reliable voters since last September in his comeback bid.

If Schock gets past the Aug. 30 primary, he's in store for another expensive election against the winner of the Democratic field.

Schock believes he will unlock support from many traditional Republican backers who are reticent to support Norman but not yet willing to embrace Schock. Norman has raised about $20,000 since his initial haul of $100,000 last September and October, and Schock thinks it would have been more if he wasn't running a viable campaign.

"I think it's pretty telling that folks are staying on the sidelines," Schock said. "Normally that wouldn't happen, they would go with the person they know, and the fact they've stayed neutral is a big win for us."

Norman didn't take issue with where Schock's donors live. But he characterized Schock's recent spending in the race as a "smear" and "distortions."

In the days leading up to Tuesday's election, Schock has spent $13,000, some of it on mailers that called Norman a "career politician" with a lot of "baggage."

"I thought he was a first class guy and I'm just so disappointed in how the race has been," Norman said. "It is really disappointing, and I didn't think we had to run races like this anymore."

Contact Steve Contorno at scontorno@tampabay.com. Follow @scontorno.