2026 Sanford Mayoral Election Result
Official results show Christina Hollerbach winning Sanford's mayoral election with 51.31% of the vote, compared with 45.86% for Charles Davis Jr. The campaign is over, but Sanford's need for clear plans, transparent records, and measurable results remains.
This site is independent civic commentary, not an endorsement of any candidate.
Official Election Result
Seminole County's official results show Christina Hollerbach receiving a majority of the vote. The contest is decided without a November runoff.
Justin Bruce Bynum: 218 votes (2.83%).
Candidate Snapshots
A campaign-era side-by-side look at the public-facing business experience each candidate brought into the 2026 Sanford mayoral race.
2026 Candidate Snapshot
Small-business owner / insurance agent
Charles Davis & Associates Inc. 2.4 5 Google reviewsMayor-Elect Snapshot
Small-business owner / restaurant operator
Hollerbach's German Restaurant 4.7 11,000+ Google reviewsTwo different business backgrounds: insurance and financial services vs. downtown hospitality, civic events, and community business leadership.
Campaign Record
Sanford is not facing vague problems. It is facing specific, expensive, operational challenges: water-treatment financing, sewer reliability, downtown parking, housing stress, homelessness coordination, public-safety capacity, and the post-CRA budget transition. Charles Davis Jr.'s campaign messaging repeatedly leans on broad themes: leadership, responsible growth, infrastructure, public safety, family support, résumé framing, and community involvement. Those are categories. They are not an operating plan.
During the campaign, voters deserved to see the work: what would be funded first, what it would cost, where the money would come from, who would pay, what would be delayed, what would be measured, and what conflicts or outside interests should be disclosed.
Davis participated in a July 2 candidate Q&A and the July 28 Sanford mayoral debate. During those appearances, he offered several individual positions: five-day City Hall availability, a goal of cutting development review times in half, continued utility improvements, returning marina operations to the city, and directing growth toward selected corridors.
Those statements deserve acknowledgment. But by Election Day on August 18, Davis had not published a complete governing plan showing first-year priorities, expected costs, funding sources, staffing changes, implementation deadlines, taxpayer or ratepayer effects, competing trade-offs, or measurable performance targets. The opportunities to explain occurred. The operating details remained unpublished.
Clear plans and complete records remain the standard.
Core Contrast
Transparency is not only a promise about how someone would govern. It also means explaining campaign claims, public responsibilities, and financial disclosures clearly before taking office.
2026 Campaign Plan Test
Choose an issue and compare what Davis's campaign published with the practical details that remained unanswered by Election Day.
Improving infrastructure is the stated direction; the first financing or construction action is not identified.
Davis cited roughly $51 million in planned utility repairs, but did not present that figure as a complete mayoral cost proposal.
No campaign funding mix, rate impact, grant assumption, borrowing approach, or cost-recovery strategy has been published.
No sequence of first-year decisions, design milestones, construction dates, or public reporting deadlines has been published.
The campaign has not explained what would be delayed, reduced, or shifted if water costs exceed current assumptions.
No public target for treatment performance, ratepayer impact, project delivery, or cost control has been published.
A fix-the-basics approach is the stated direction; the first sewer project and responsible department are not identified.
No project-by-project estimate for redundancy, telemetry, odor control, or wastewater upgrades has been published.
No funding mix or ratepayer-protection approach tied to a sewer project order has been published.
No repair sequence, milestone schedule, or deadline for the highest-risk improvements has been published.
The campaign has not explained how sewer priorities would compete with other utility and general-fund needs.
No target for failures, odors, response times, reliability, or public progress reporting has been published.
The campaign points to CRA-era parking additions and downtown experience, but does not identify the next capacity action.
No estimate for structured parking, shared-use capacity, shuttles, signage, enforcement, or another approach has been published.
The campaign has not identified who would pay for future parking capacity after the CRA sunset.
No capacity study, decision date, implementation sequence, or peak-demand milestone has been published.
No choice among land, structured parking, paid parking, transit, neighborhoods, or competing city investments has been published.
No target for peak capacity, spillover, turnover, employee parking, wayfinding, or event demand has been published.
Supporting working families is the stated direction; the first housing or neighborhood-stabilization action is not identified.
No cost estimate for production, rehabilitation, preservation, stabilization, or homelessness coordination has been published.
No city, county, federal, nonprofit, developer, or dedicated local funding mix has been published.
No first-year housing target, zoning schedule, partnership deadline, or neighborhood milestone has been published.
The campaign has not explained choices involving density, land, incentives, neighborhood impacts, or other spending priorities.
No target for units, preservation, displacement prevention, neighborhood conditions, or service coordination has been published.
Supporting first responders is the stated direction; the first staffing, retention, equipment, or service action is not identified.
No estimate for staffing, retention incentives, training, equipment, or service changes has been published.
No recurring funding source or budget trade-off for expanded public-safety capacity has been published.
No hiring schedule, retention milestone, equipment timeline, or service-improvement deadline has been published.
The campaign has not explained how added staffing or equipment would affect other city services and capital needs.
No target for staffing, retention, response time, service levels, workload, or public reporting has been published.
Davis supports helping downtown events with city services, but has not identified the first post-CRA budget decision.
No annual cost for continuing former CRA-supported services, events, or downtown functions has been published.
Davis has acknowledged that replacement funds must come from somewhere, without naming a funding source.
No transition schedule for former CRA services, funding decisions, or public budget review has been published.
No choice among the general fund, fees, sponsors, organizers, downtown businesses, or reduced services has been published.
No eligibility rule, service target, return measure, or public accounting standard has been published.
Issues
These are not abstract policy debates. They are practical city-management tests. Each one requires decisions, funding, execution, and public accountability.
The City Challenge: Sanford is facing about $56 million in FDEP SRF funding for 1,4-dioxane and PFAS contamination response, with approximately $52 million loan-forgivable.
Davis's Published Position: Improving infrastructure.
Details Still Needed: A published funding framework explaining rate impacts, borrowing, litigation posture, cost recovery, and long-term financial exposure.
The Question: What is your water-treatment financing position, and how would you protect Sanford ratepayers?
The City Challenge: In 2025, a vacuum-pump failure affected roughly 600 homes, alongside wastewater odor concerns that generated sustained local concern.
Davis's Published Position: A fix-the-basics approach to utilities.
Details Still Needed: A published project order for capital sequencing, odor-control redundancy, telemetry, or specific wastewater upgrades.
The Question: Which sewer projects would you fund first, and how would you measure whether the system is improving?
The City Challenge: Downtown parking demand is a capacity problem. As downtown grows as a restaurant, nightlife, event, and visitor destination, Sanford needs a plan for peak demand, employee parking, residential spillover, wayfinding, enforcement, maintenance, and future expansion.
Davis's Published Position: Davis's campaign points to CRA-era parking additions and downtown experience.
Details Still Needed: A future-capacity strategy explaining how much parking downtown needs next, how it should be funded, how event traffic and residential spillover should be handled, and what improvements would be prioritized first.
The Question: What is your long-term downtown parking strategy beyond the CRA-era parking additions?
The City Challenge: Sanford's Consolidated Plan identifies 1,535 extremely low-income households facing major housing problems, with acute economic distress concentrated in vulnerable neighborhoods like Goldsboro.
Davis's Published Position: Supporting working families.
Details Still Needed: A published operating plan for affordable-housing production, rehabilitation, preservation, neighborhood stabilization, or zoning reform.
The Question: What is your measurable housing and neighborhood-stabilization strategy?
The City Challenge: Sanford relies heavily on Seminole County and nonprofit systems for homelessness response. Partners like the Rescue Outreach Mission have faced significant funding pressure.
Davis's Published Position: Family and community support.
Details Still Needed: A published coordination plan explaining how Davis would work with the county, nonprofits, outreach providers, housing partners, and public safety agencies.
The Question: What is your specific city/county/nonprofit coordination plan for shelter, outreach, prevention, and services?
The City Challenge: Police and fire capacity depends on staffing, retention, response load, equipment, and coverage. Rapid population growth places heavy demands on Sanford's emergency-response network.
Davis's Published Position: Public-safety commitment and first-responder support.
Details Still Needed: Published service-level goals, staffing targets, retention goals, response metrics, equipment priorities, or funding implications connected to his growth model.
The Question: What staffing, retention, response-time, and equipment targets would you publish?
The City Challenge: The Sanford CRA sunsetted on December 31, 2025. City funding for downtown trolley and shuttle services began October 1, 2025. Former CRA-era downtown services now compete with citywide operating priorities.
Davis's Published Position: CRA resume and downtown activation experience.
Details Still Needed: A post-CRA budget plan explaining whether former CRA services would continue, be reduced, be replaced, or be paid for citywide.
The Question: How would you weigh former CRA services against water, sewer, parking, public safety, housing, and citywide infrastructure?
The City Challenge: Sanford is not in fiscal collapse, but it has entered a more technical, expensive operating reality.
Davis's Published Position: Leadership, public updates, and accountability messaging.
Details Still Needed: Published costs, timelines, rates, funding sources, trade-offs, metrics, project order, or conflict disclosures.
The Question: If you have the plan, why not publish it?
Parking
During the campaign, Davis pointed to CRA-era parking additions and downtown experience. But adding parking through a public agency did not answer Sanford's larger downtown-access problem.
The real issue is capacity. Downtown Sanford has continued to grow as a restaurant, nightlife, event, and visitor destination. A limited number of added spaces may help, but it does not prove there is a long-term parking strategy for peak demand, residential spillover, event traffic, employee parking, wayfinding, enforcement, maintenance, or future expansion.
The unanswered campaign question was what should come next.
Past parking additions may help. Sanford still needs a future-capacity strategy.
Questions
Davis had several public opportunities to explain his priorities. These questions preserve the implementation details that remained unanswered when voters made their decision.
These questions remain part of the public campaign record.
Updates
The official result and mayoral transition appear first. Earlier entries preserve the public statements, campaign materials, forums, records, and accountability questions reviewed during the 2026 race.
All 14 Sanford precincts reported. Because Hollerbach received a majority, the mayoral race is decided without a November runoff. The result does not establish why every voter made their choice, but it closes a campaign defined by contrasting approaches to public engagement, transparency, and governing detail.
BadForMayor.com will remain as an archive of the public record and questions raised during the 2026 race. Sanford's operational challenges continue, and the same standard now applies to the incoming administration: publish the work, measure the results, and explain the trade-offs.
The campaign standard now becomes a governing standard: show the work and report the results.
Entries below preserve the dated campaign record as it appeared before voting concluded.
A recent local video raised questions about whether Orlando Sanford Flying Club operates as a traditional member-owned flying club or under a commercial operating category. The available records do not establish a violation, but they present questions that deserve clear answers:
The simplest way to resolve these questions is to release the club's current lease, operating classification, and any commercial permit, waiver, or written authorization that applies.
This does not require speculation. Publish the documents and clarify the status.
Election Day is when voters decide how much both the answers and the unanswered questions matter. Sanford's next mayor will inherit consequential decisions involving utilities, growth, downtown parking, housing, public safety, and the post-CRA budget. The central standard remains straightforward: priorities identify subjects, but credible plans explain first actions, costs, funding sources, timelines, trade-offs, and measurable results.
Review the available public record, then verify your assigned Election Day polling place before leaving.
Vote informed. Demand clarity.
The amendment says the source-of-income information did not save when the original form was completed. That explanation does not address why the SIMPLE IRA and three liabilities were also absent from the original filing.
The amended filing continues to mark "Interests in Specified Businesses" N/A. Davis's 2024 filing identified him as Agent/Owner with more than a five-percent interest. Florida's Form 1 instructions list insurance companies among specified businesses and require disclosure in certain ownership, officer, proprietor, or agency circumstances.
These differences warrant a clear explanation. This update documents changes in the public record; it does not claim that an ethics violation has been established.
WFTV reported that the 2021 contract was already in place and had been put out for bid again. The available records do not establish a connection between the earlier reported transaction and the 2021 contract, and they do not establish wrongdoing. No public final task-force finding was located.
Because Davis presents his business experience, board service, and transparency as qualifications for mayor, voters can reasonably ask him to explain the earlier transaction, including any disclosure or recusal, and to say whether he or his agency had any role in the separate 2021 contract. The public record reviewed here does not answer those questions.
Public appearances do not replace written policy details, but longer conversations give voters more opportunity to evaluate how a candidate listens, reasons through questions, and communicates outside a short debate format. Hollerbach's participation continued a pattern of direct public engagement after the July 28 debate.
The August 6 forum was sponsored by the Pearlie Mae Ford Community Service Club and moderated by Derrick Daniels. Publicly available event materials reviewed for this update confirmed Hollerbach's participation. Events like this improve voter access, but they do not eliminate the need for written plans that the public can examine after a forum ends.
A debate answer can clarify a position, but Sanford's major operating problems require more than verbal assurances. Water and wastewater investment, development-review reform, downtown parking, public safety, housing, the marina, and the post-CRA budget all involve money, staffing, sequencing, legal constraints, and difficult choices.
Davis has made clear which subjects he wants associated with his campaign. What remains missing is a written plan showing what he would do first, how it would be paid for, what success would look like, and what would have to wait.
This is the kind of concrete infrastructure detail voters should expect in a mayoral race: scope, cost, permitting, timeline, agency review, and funding path. The issue is not whether a candidate supports infrastructure in general. It is whether voters can see the operating plan behind the promise. If Davis wants to campaign on fixing infrastructure, voters should ask which projects he would prioritize, what they cost, what permits are needed, what funding is assumed, and what happens if federal reimbursement falls short.
The campaign's five points cover City Hall service, infrastructure, responsible growth, transparency, and local opportunity. Those are legitimate topics. But the page still does not identify first actions, costs, funding sources, responsible departments, timelines, measurable targets, staffing needs, taxpayer or ratepayer impacts, or trade-offs between competing city priorities. Five priorities are not five solutions. At the July 28 debate, Davis offered individual positions, but the campaign still did not publish the operating plan behind the labels.
That is a real target and should be acknowledged. But it is not yet an operating plan. Which reviews would be cut in half? Would Davis hire staff, change employee schedules, rewrite procedures, add software, create an ombudsman escalation process, or publish a dashboard? Without those details, "cut it in half" is still a promise without the machinery.
This is more specific than generic infrastructure language, but it still does not answer the mayoral question. Sanford voters need the project order, financing method, grant assumptions, ratepayer impact, low-income protection, litigation or cost-recovery posture, and public progress metrics. Pointing to work already in motion is not the same as publishing a mayoral financing framework.
That moment matters because transparency is one of the easiest campaign words to use and one of the hardest governing habits to prove. Voters should ask Davis what specific notice, dashboard, public-records, agenda, developer-review, budget, or communication process he would change first. A transparency platform should be able to name a real decision and a real reform.
Naming growth areas is not the same as governing growth. Voters still need to know what Davis would require before approving more density: road capacity, school impact coordination, utility capacity, affordability targets, parking standards, stormwater requirements, and public-benefit terms. "Get the development we want" sounds good. The missing piece is the written framework.
Voters can support police and still ask whether every nonviolent call should receive the same response model. Sanford needs measurable answers for mental-health calls, homelessness-related calls, substance-use issues, nuisance calls, officer workload, response time, training, and coordination with county and nonprofit partners. Davis rejected the alternative-response concept, but did not publish a substitute plan for these complex calls.
That confirms one of the central questions Sanford voters deserve answered. If former CRA-supported services continue, who pays now? The general fund? New fees? Sponsorships? Event organizers? Downtown businesses? Citywide taxpayers? Davis said he supports helping events with city services, but he did not identify the funding source, annual cost, eligibility rules, or trade-offs against water, sewer, public safety, housing, and other citywide needs.
Bynum's exit makes the accountability question simpler: Sanford voters can now compare Davis's broad management-and-growth message against the city's specific operating problems. The central question remains the same: which candidate can publish costs, timelines, funding sources, project order, trade-offs, and public accountability metrics before Election Day?