JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — You may have been seeing the attack ads for months now; Tom Leek and David Shoar are in a bitter battle for the Republican nomination in Florida's Senate District 7. Some viewers have been asking First Coast News to VERIFY the claims in the ads.
John Daigle, First Coast News political analyst and professor of political communications at the University of North Florida, said the research on attack ads speaks for itself. The ads airing about Leek and Shoar will sway voters.
"Everybody says they hate negative ads, but there is a reason why political committees and candidates spend money on them, and it's because they work. Human nature is much more likely to believe negative information than it is to believe positive information. People watching these ads for whatever reason are just more likely to be influenced by negative information than they are positive," Daigle explained.
THE QUESTIONS
Is Tom Leek backed by developers?
Did Tom Leek create budgets that funded in-state tuition for illegal immigrants?
Is David Shoar backed by trial lawyers?
Did Shoar's CFO embezzle close to $700,000 under his watch?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWERS
Is Tom Leek backed by developers? According to campaign finance reports, Leek has received money from hundreds of donors, including developers, construction and real estate companies, attorneys and even car dealerships. The political committee, Friends of Tom Leek, has also received money from developers, construction and real estate companies, but they are not the only contributors, nor are they the biggest donors. So, this question is misleading.
Did Tom Leek create budgets that funded in-state tuition for illegal immigrants? This is false. While Rick Scott was governor, he signed HB 851 into law in 2014. This allows undocumented immigrants to get in-state tuition with out-of-state waivers. Leek was not in the state legislature at the time. He was first elected to the Florida House in 2016.
Is David Shoar backed by trial lawyers? This is true. According to campaign finance reports, a majority of Shoar's donors are attorneys. The two political committees that support him, The Truth Matters and Conservative Veterans Alliance, are both run by an attorney in the law firm where he works. Their main contributor is another political committee called Floridians for Accountability, Freedom, and Opportunity, which has received more than $6 million from attorneys.
Did Shoar's CFO embezzle close to $700,000 under his watch? This is true, but needs context. According to reporting by our partners at the Florida Times-Union, Raye Brutnell was the CFO of the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office while Shoar was sheriff. She was found guilty of embezzling around $670,000 from the sheriff's office. So, the crimes did happen while Shoar was sheriff, but Shoar immediately placed Brutnell on leave once he was made aware of fake checks and called in another department to investigate.
Daigle said these types of attack ads are considered 'false-flag attacks,' where the creators of the ad attempt to depict a candidate as not 'conservative or liberal enough.' He said these ads are starting to grow in popularity in elections.
"That trend is new and in primaries, it really is a sinister type of attack and it's very effective in primaries when voters are trying to figure out who is the real Democrat, who's the real Republican in a race like this," Daigle said.
First Coast News spoke with both Leek and Shoar about their campaigns and the political ad battle. Click the related links below to read about each candidate.