Fort Myers: who represents it, and who is running

U.S. general election (federal, state and county offices), with the City of Fort Myers municipal general election votes on 2026-11-03. It elects u.S. Senator (special election, Moody seat); U.S. Representative FL-17 (2026 map); Governor and Lieutenant Governor (open) and the Cabinet; Florida House HD-78 (open; SD-33 not up); judicial retention and Lee County offices; City of Fort Myers Mayor and Council Wards 1, 3 and 5 (nonpartisan, four-year terms; primary was August 18, 2026)..

Holding office12
the sitting council
On the ballot16
2 sitting members running again

The official candidate list ↗ · What Fort Myers is like — the /local page

Congressional district (city hall): Florida's 19th congressional district on the current (119th) map; Florida's 17th on the 2026 map (City Hall and all 23 sampled city points) — Byron Donalds (Republican)

1

Mayor

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Kevin B. Anderson ✉️ Elected Mayor Independent City of Fort Myers
2

Councilperson

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Darla Bonk ✉️ Elected Councilperson Independent Ward 6 City of Fort Myers
Diana Giraldo ✉️ Elected Councilperson Independent Ward 2 City of Fort Myers
Fred Burson ✉️ Elected Councilperson Independent Ward 5 City of Fort Myers
Liston Bochette III ✉️ Elected Councilperson Independent Ward 4 City of Fort Myers
Teresa Watkins Brown ✉️ Elected Councilperson Independent Ward 1 City of Fort Myers
Terolyn Watson ✉️ Elected Councilperson Independent Ward 3 City of Fort Myers
3

Governor

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Ron DeSantis Elected Governor Republican Executive Office of the Governor of Florida (as read 2026-10-15 for us-jacksonville; not re-read)
Byron Donalds Elected U.S. Representative → Running for Governor Republican U.S. House of Representatives
Charles Burkett Governor Running Independent Florida Division of Elections
David Jolly Governor Running Democratic Florida Division of Elections
Dean Ocean Abrams Governor Running Independent Florida Division of Elections
Frank J. Russo Governor Running Independent Florida Division of Elections
Jeffrey Peter "Dr. Jeff" Datto Governor Running Independent Florida Division of Elections
Moliere "Moe" Dimanche Governor Running Independent Florida Division of Elections
Scott Eckhard Jewett Governor Running Libertarian Florida Division of Elections
4

State Representative — HD-78

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Cindy Banyai Candidate Running Democratic Florida Division of Elections
Susan Frantz Candidate Running Republican Florida Division of Elections
5

State Senator — SD-33

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Jonathan Martin ✉️ Elected State Senator Republican The Florida Senate
6

U.S. Senator

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Rick Scott Elected U.S. Senator Republican @unitedstates congress-legislators (legislators-current.json)
Ashley Moody Elected U.S. Senator → Running Republican @unitedstates congress-legislators (legislators-current.json)
Angie Nixon U.S. Senator Running Democratic Florida Division of Elections
Neil J. Gillespie U.S. Senator Running Independent Florida Division of Elections
7

U.S. Representative — FL-17

NameOfficeParty / slateSeatSource
Greg Steube U.S. Representative Running Republican Florida Division of Elections
Matthew Montavon Candidate Running Democratic Florida Division of Elections
Michael J. Quirk Candidate Running Independent Florida Division of Elections
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Notes on this record

How the lists were read, and what could not be.

  • Candidates (federal/state): Florida Division of Elections Candidate Tracking System, 'Candidate Listing for 2026 General Election' (all groups, all counties), retrieved 2026-10-31 (dos.elections.myflorida.com has no robots.txt — 404). Kept Qualified candidates who won or had no primary for U.S. Senate, FL-17, Governor, HD-78. Dropped Defeated/Eliminated primary losers, write-ins (WRI) and 'Transferred to Local'. Candidate detail pages (which print addresses) not opened. Statewide rows (Senate, Governor) mirror the us-naples reading of the same Division list, re-pointed to the all-county listing.
  • Districts: Census geocoder at City Hall (2200 Second St) gave CD-17 (120th/2026 map), SD-33, HD-78. A 8x8 grid (23 points inside 'Fort Myers city'): 120th CD-17 on all 23; 119th (ACS2025) CD-19 on all 23; HD-78 on all 23; State Senate 33 (17), 28 (3), 27 (3). So the city's sitting U.S. Representative is Byron Donalds (FL-19), while the November ballot carries FL-17 (Steube inc. v Montavon v Quirk). SD-27/SD-28 also cover parts of the city: SD-28 is on the 2026 ballot (Lauren Uhlich Melo REP v David Silverberg DEM; seat open, Passidomo) — not recorded as people because only City Hall's SD-33 is in scope.
  • State members: SD-33 Senator Jonathan Martin from flsenate.gov/Senators/s33 (Crawl-delay 10 honoured; official web email kept, photo linked). HD-78: the flhouse.gov Representatives list shows 'Pending Election — District: 78' and 'Persons-Mulicka, Jenna, Republican — District: 78, 11/06/24 - 05/20/26' — the seat is vacant, so no sitting member is recorded. Senators from the CC0 @unitedstates legislators-current.json; Donalds and Steube from house.gov/representatives. Governor DeSantis row carried from us-naples/us-tampa (flgov.com robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot/anthropic-ai; not fetched).
  • Municipal: Mayor and six ward Councilpersons from fortmyers.gov (City Mayor & Council page 1168, Mayor's Office 1304, Ward pages 1305-1310), read 2026-10-31. fortmyers.gov robots.txt has a named group including ClaudeBot that disallows only admin/search/calendar/RSS/map-type paths (no Crawl-delay in that group; the '*' group's 10 s was observed anyway). 'Each councilperson is elected by registered voters in his/her respective ward ... for a 4-year term'; the mayor is elected citywide. Official @fortmyers.gov emails and portrait URLs recorded; ward-office phones not copied.
  • City election: the City Clerk page (fortmyers.gov/1181/City-Clerk, '2026 Elections' tab) says '2026 Municipal Elections — COUNCIL MEMBERS FOR WARDS 1, 3, AND 5 AND MAYOR (Four Year Terms) — PRIMARY ELECTION: August 18, 2026 — GENERAL ELECTION: November 3, 2026', but publishes no candidate list; its 'Campaign Portal' (cityoffortmyersfl.easyvotecampaignfinance.com) is a script-only app loading reCAPTCHA — not used. The Lee County Supervisor of Elections (lee.vote / www.lee.vote) answers even robots.txt with a Cloudflare 'Sorry, you have been blocked' page — not bypassed. A web-search summary of the Lee SOE municipal candidate list (https://www.lee.vote/DocumentCenter/View/951, not opened) shows Mayor: Kevin B. Anderson v Amber Ware; Ward 3: Terolyn P. Watson v Chantel 'Telly' Rhodes; Wards 1 (Watkins Brown) and 5 (Burson) elected unopposed. Not recorded as candidates because no official list could be read; fill from lee.vote when reachable. Next city election after this: November 2028 (Wards 2, 4, 6 — inferred from Bochette's and Bonk's November 2024 re-election to 4-year terms).
  • Hosts: dos.elections.myflorida.com, geocoding.geo.census.gov, unitedstates.github.io (no robots.txt); house.gov, flsenate.gov, flhouse.gov, fortmyers.gov (robots read, pages allowed). Blocked: lee.vote / www.lee.vote (Cloudflare block on robots.txt). standsFor null for everyone (city bios are the City's text, not campaign statements). No home addresses, phones or personal emails. One web search used.
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Sources

Prepared 2026-11-01. Nomination papers are never opened: they carry home addresses. After voting day a candidate list becomes a result; these rows are reconciled, not deleted.