Ingram: An eight-year guy (podcast)

When Clay Ingram was first elected to the Florida House in 2010, people in Tallahassee wanted to know if planned to serve a full four terms.

On “Pensacola Speaks,” he explained, “You’re sometimes outright asked by the leadership, ‘Are you an eight-year guy? Do you plan to see this through, your full terms through, or do you have ambitions to run for something else?’ My response was always, ‘I plan to be an eight-year guy,’ on the assumption that I was doing a good job and got reelected.”

Had the district lines remained the same, the 2018 election cycle would have had him terming out of the House just as Greg Evers was terming out of his State Senate seat. Ingram could have run for the open senate seat.

“That changed with the redistricting process. All of the sudden, that wasn’t the case anymore. (Evers) got the ability to serve longer because District 2 was redrawn,” said Ingram.

When Congressman Jeff Miller announced that he would not run again, the political landscape changed yet again. Party leadership asked Ingram if he would be interested in running for the Evers’ seat, if the state senator chose to run for Congress.

“I absolutely entertained it, and probably at one point thought that if, at the end of the legislative session, it’s a vacant seat, then I would think long and hard about it and probably do it,” said Ingram. “That was my mindset at the end of the legislative session.”

When he came home in early March, his resolve began to waive. He spent more time with his family and at his job at Greater Pensacola Chamber, where he is the president and CEO. Last year’s string of special sessions and committee meetings kept Ingram away from the chamber offices, forcing to telecommute most of the time.

“For the first time, I had been here solidly for a month and really felt like we were moving the ball at the Chamber, finally had some real balls in the air, and things were going really well,” said Ingram. “Leslie (his wife) and I talked about, ‘Would I be able to effectively run a Senate campaign in that very large district, representing that many more people, be a good dad and husband, and then continue to do well at the Chamber of Commerce?”

They weighed what could be a very competitive State Senate race over a compressed timeframe versus the known quantity of running for a House reelection. The couple ultimately decided the House race made the most sense.

Ingram, who chairs the House Transportation & Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee, said, “If you’re doing that job well and you’ve been successful at it, you want to take advantage of that and leverage all of the good will that I’ve built up over the first terms I’ve had.”