{"id":15660,"date":"2021-10-09T14:50:49","date_gmt":"2021-10-09T18:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=15660"},"modified":"2021-10-09T14:52:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-09T18:52:12","slug":"sheriff-grady-judd-no-endorsement-in-the-lakeland-mayoral-race-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/10\/09\/sheriff-grady-judd-no-endorsement-in-the-lakeland-mayoral-race-but\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff Grady Judd: No endorsement in the Lakeland mayoral race, but\u2026.."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A Saga Stevin campaign mailer sent out to Lakeland households raised questions about whether Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has endorsed challenger Stevin over incumbent Bill Mutz in the mayor race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The mailer sent to homes last week by the Saga for Lakeland campaign, reads, \u201cLakeland Mayor Howard Wiggs, Sheriff Grady Judd and County Commissioner Neil Combee with Saga Stevin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"822\" height=\"1024\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 822px) 100vw, 822px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/signal-2021-09-25-105129-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15663\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/signal-2021-09-25-105129-1.jpg 822w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/signal-2021-09-25-105129-1-241x300.jpg 241w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/signal-2021-09-25-105129-1-768x957.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both Former Mayor Wiggs and the Polk Commissioner Combee have openly stated their support for Saga Stevin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mayor Bill Mutz has said that her mailer was intentionally created to infer an endorsement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sheriff Grady Judd has told The Lakeland Gazette via email that he has stated he does not endorse either current Mayor Bill Mutz, or his challenger Saga Stevin in their bid for the Lakeland mayor\u2019s seat this November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sheriff also stated he does not back candidates for municipal elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Judd\u2019s email stated that \u201cI have not endorsed any candidate for the mayor\u2019s race in Lakeland and I am not planning to endorse,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI take lots of photos with many people and encourage them to share them with their friends. I know both candidates and, of course, I am a longtime friend of Mayor Bill Mutz. It is up to Lakeland voters to choose their next Mayor, not me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 526px) 100vw, 526px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/244422725_6244665192154_6684940432778765278_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15661\" width=\"230\" height=\"230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/244422725_6244665192154_6684940432778765278_n.jpg 526w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/244422725_6244665192154_6684940432778765278_n-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/244422725_6244665192154_6684940432778765278_n-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/244422725_6244665192154_6684940432778765278_n-250x250.jpg 250w\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>For example in 2018, Judd took offense when Republican Ross Spano sent a mailer while campaigning for Congress that featured an image of him with the sheriff that implied Judd\u2019s endorsement. At the time, Judd said the use of his photo was \u201cmisleading the voters, misleading the community.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Judd did not offer any such criticism of Stevin\u2019s flyer. When asked by The Lakeland Gazette what differences there are between Spano and Stevin\u2019s actions, the Sheriff\u2019s Office did not respond, why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Who has endorsed who so far \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.To date<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mutz has been endorsed by the Business Voice of Greater Lakeland, Florida Family Policy Council, and Lakeland Realtors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stevin has been endorsed by Lakeland\u2019s Fraternal Order of Police and Lakeland Professional Firefighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Judd has endorsed Jennifer Canady \u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"350\" height=\"361\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/canady.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15664\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/canady.png 350w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/canady-291x300.png 291w\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Saga Stevin campaign mailer sent out to Lakeland households raised questions about whether Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has endorsed challenger Stevin over incumbent Bill Mutz in the mayor&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[1369,1368],"class_list":["post-15660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-but","tag-sheriff-grady-judd-no-endorsement-in-lakeland-mayoral-race"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}