Republican incumbent Blaise Ingoglia was elected Florida's chief financial officer on Tuesday, defeating Democratic challenger and former state Sen. Annette Taddeo, according to unofficial election results. With 98% of precincts reporting, Ingoglia had received 50.9% of the vote.
This is the first time Ingoglia has won a statewide election as a candidate since Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to the Cabinet-level position in July 2025. He replaced former CFO Jimmy Patronis, who left the job after winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, Taddeo, the first Latina Democrat elected to the Florida Senate, served from 2017 to 2022 but failed to flip the CFO seat for Democrats. Her loss adds to a long record of unsuccessful campaigns, including bids for Congress in 2008 and 2022, the Miami-Dade County Commission in 2010, lieutenant governor in 2014 and Miami-Dade County Clerk and Comptroller in 2024.
Ingoglia's victory means another four years of Republican control over the CFO's office, which has remained in Republican hands since 2011, when Democrat Alex Sink left office. It also represents a political win for DeSantis, allowing one of his most visible appointees to remain in the Cabinet for a full elected term.
Florida’s CFO oversees state finances, insurance regulation, fire marshal services, and unclaimed property administration.
Since his appointment, Ingoglia has used the visibility of the office to make a name for himself and advance a conservative agenda, holding news conferences as he toured Florida to criticize local governments for what he described as wasteful spending. Using a formula his office calls the FAFO methodology, which factors in population growth and inflation, his office has claimed to identify $3.7 billion in excessive local government spending. Local officials have challenged the methodology, arguing that it does not account for all the factors that affect budgets.
Both candidates campaigned on promises to address government spending, but differed on what they considered the biggest financial problems facing Floridians. Taddeo supported increasing the homestead exemption for homeowners but opposed Amendment 3. Ingoglia supported the amendment which would cut local government funding by reducing property taxes, arguing that local governments could absorb the revenue losses through cuts to excessive spending.
Taddeo, in line with Democratic candidates this election, also pledged to investigate state emergency spending, starting with the $1.2 billion spent on Alligator Alcatraz, and make her findings public.
Ingoglia defended the state's immigration enforcement efforts and supported directing resources toward local law enforcement agencies participating in federal agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The program allows participating local law enforcement officers to perform certain immigration enforcement functions. His campaign website listed endorsements from 62 Florida sheriffs.
This article first appeared on The Florida Trib and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
