Public records report · filings through July 17, 2026 (received through July 23)

Stuart 2026: The Money Behind the City Commission Races

Every itemized contribution and expenditure from the campaign treasurer reports filed with the Stuart City Clerk for all seven candidates in Groups 1, 3, and 5 — who is raising, who is giving, and who is paying for websites. Compiled from scanned, mostly handwritten filings; see caveats at the bottom.

Martin County Commission races report →

$84,548

Total monetary raised, all 7 candidates

+ ~$7,021 in-kind

$38,798

Total spent so far

Matheson

Money leader — $36,901

2.4× the incumbent mayor

PAC / political-committee money

in any city filing (county races differ — see report)

None

Public polling found

for any city race (as of Jul 24)

Where each candidate's money comes from

Contributions by source. The incumbents and Matheson run on donor networks; the challengers mostly write their own checks.

Individuals Self / candidate loans Businesses In-kind

The three races

Raised (monetary)Spent

Who's behind the money

Donors appearing in more than one candidate's filings, and the business money. The pattern: Rich, Matheson, and Clarke draw from one overlapping downtown network of attorneys, brokers, builders, and real-estate holding companies — many of the same names appear on two or three of their reports. The challengers (Laughlin, Ogden, Micciche, Oldenborg) run on self-funding and a much thinner, separate donor set.

Cross-candidate donors

Donor	Occupation (as filed)	Gave to	Combined
Stephen Fry	Attorney	Rich $1,000 · Matheson $1,000 · Clarke $1,000	$3,000
John S. Leighton III + Leighton Holding Inc + 604 Ocean Holding	Broker / investor (shared P.O. Box 1273)	Rich $1,000 + $1,619.88 in-kind · Clarke $1,000	$3,619.88
Peter Upton & Marianne Ireland (household, 208 Dunscombe Rd)	Attorney / psychiatrist	Rich $2,000 · Matheson $2,000	$4,000
Charles Geary	Attorney	Matheson $1,000 · Clarke $1,000	$2,000
Clay Scherer	Scientist / entomologist	Rich $1,000 · Matheson $500 · Clarke $500	$2,000
Michael Braid	Manager / B&B owner	Matheson $1,000 · Clarke $1,000	$2,000
Michael Houston	Landscape architect / land planner	Matheson $1,000 · Clarke $500	$1,500
Joseph Cooper (+ The GA Group LLC, same address)	Builder / general contractor	Rich $500 · Clarke $500 · Matheson $500 (LLC)	$1,500
Ryan Strom / 611 PDR LLC / 611 PBR LLC	Construction	Clarke $500 · Matheson $500 · Rich $299.58 in-kind	$1,299.58
Allen Ray Milam	Retired	Laughlin $1,000 · Matheson $1,000	$2,000
Walter Loyd	Retired	Laughlin $500 · Ogden $500 (five $100 checks) · Oldenborg $500 — every challenger except Micciche	$1,500
Megan McChrystal · Alfred Wetzel · Marcia Regan	—	each gave to both Laughlin and Ogden	$20–$600 ea.
Martha Warner	Self-employed / retired	Rich $500 · Matheson $500	$1,000
Karl Krueger	Retired	Rich $300 · Matheson $300	$600
James Moir	Retired / volunteer	Rich $300 · Matheson $300	$600
Paula Hundt	Retired	Rich $200 · Matheson $250	$450
Alicia Butler	Retired	Rich $200 · Matheson $200	$400
Joe Catrambone	CEO	Matheson $100 · Clarke $100	$200
Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch	Retired	Rich $100 · Matheson $100	$200
Xavier Quinones	Unemployed	Rich $100 · Matheson $100	$200
Patricia Williams · Patricia Childs · Elsie Stewart · Rob Ranieri · Pam McLean	—	each gave small amounts to both Rich and Matheson	$50–$200 ea.

Worth noting A donor named Chris Collins gave $500 to Will Laughlin — Campbell's opponent — and a "Christopher Collins" (412 SE Osceola St) gave $100 to Derreck Ogden, the other insurgent challenger. Neither filing lists an occupation, and whether this is Vice-Mayor Christopher Collins (now running for Martin County Commission District 2) is not verified — but the same name backing both challengers is a pattern. Meanwhile nearly all of Matheson's and Rich's biggest backers overlap — Fry, Upton/Ireland, Scherer, Warner, Krueger, Moir — meaning the Group 1 and Group 3 front-runners are funded by largely the same people, while the challengers (Laughlin, Ogden, Oldenborg) share their own small donor circle: Loyd, McChrystal, Wetzel, Regan, Collins.

Business & LLC money

To Matheson ($8,600): Stuart Plumbing $1,000 · Evergreen Private Care of Florida LLC $1,000 · The Firefly Group $1,000 in-kind (his own PR vendor) · Tami Karol Insurance $500 · The GA Group LLC $500 · Lucido & Associates $500 · Misherdan LLP $500 · Lee Property Sales $500 · 611 PBR LLC $500 · A-1 Mini Storage $500 · Culture Shift Elixery $500 in-kind · Sanford Woods Sr (Stuart Toyota) $1,000 · Knight & Ann Kiplinger $2,000
To Rich ($3,938.92 in-kind + checks): SVG Properties, Dehon Building Investors, Leighton Holding, 604 Ocean Holding — $809.94 each for the campaign kick-off (real-estate/legal entities, two sharing the Leighton P.O. box) · Scott Turnbull $299.58 · Ryan Strom $299.58 · Stuart Chamber $100
To Clarke: 611 PDR LLC $500 · RK Consulting $299.58 in-kind
To Ogden: WOM Technology Management Group (his own IT firm — he is CEO) — $250 loan + $449.54 in-kind yard signs
To Micciche: Tri County Enterprises $500 · Perfect Paver Pros $68.20
To Laughlin: loans routed via Lochinvar Capital Management LLC ($1,300 after amendment)

Self-funding

Ogden: $10,250 of $12,278 (~83%) — $10,000 personal loan + $250 from his company
Laughlin: $1,300 of $4,370 (30%) in candidate/LLC loans
Matheson: $2,500 self-loan (7%) · Clarke: $500 self-loan · Micciche: $300 · Oldenborg: $240
Rich: $0 — the only candidate with no self-funding (family reimbursements only)

Who's paying for websites & digital

The original question. Only two campaigns pay anyone for web work — and only Matheson has a real digital operation.

Candidate	Website / digital vendors	Web-specific $	Everything else digital
Matheson	Impressive Click Web Design (Jensen Beach) — $49.99/mo hosting, 3 payments	$149.97	Firefly PR $5,500 "marketing" · LGD Designs $350 graphics · Campaign Verify $95 (political SMS registration) · Niche Markets $3,566 phone marketing · Stripe online-donation fees
Rich	Darren Steptoe (individual, Chicago IL) — "campaign website support and video support," paid 7/17	$680.00	No domain/hosting line anywhere — if the site is hosted somewhere, that cost isn't in the filings
Ogden	Formspree (website contact-form service) $15 × 2	$30.00	Microsoft 365 $92.40 (email) · Anedot donation processing ~$68. Runs a website with no design/hosting/domain expense — plausibly built in-house at his IT firm (WOM Tech)
Micciche	—	$0	"Stuart Local" social-media ads, 4 payments totaling $447.16 (vendor address is an apartment unit — likely a local social page, not an ad firm)
Clarke	—	$0	Shutterstock $49 photo licensing · Anedot fees $150.96 · everything else is print (Kinane Printing $2,500)
Laughlin	—	$0	Anedot donation fees $103.50 only. All spending is print/apparel
Oldenborg	—	$0	Stripe fees ~$17.62 (has an online donation page, nothing else digital)

Polling & PACs

Polling: none found. No public poll or survey exists for any 2026 Stuart City Commission race (searched Jul 24, 2026). Normal for a municipal race this size — the finance reports above are the best available proxy for campaign strength.
PAC contributions: zero in the city. No political committee, PAC, or party money appears in any of the 40 city reports. Every dollar is individuals, local businesses/LLCs, or the candidates themselves. (The county races are different — Kazanjian's County Commission campaign is funded entirely by police-union PACs; see the county report.)
C-PAC — the Stuart/Martin County Chamber of Commerce PAC — exists and historically endorses in county commission races. Its website was unreachable when checked; no evidence of city-race spending so far. Worth re-checking as August approaches.
We Care Martin (wecaremartin.org/2026) runs a candidate directory for all 2026 Martin County + Stuart races — no endorsements, ratings, or polls, just bios and campaign links.
County context: Stuart Vice-Mayor Christopher Collins is running for the open Martin County Commission District 2 seat against Susan O'Rourke and Althea Wiley Stoudemire — which is why Group 3 (his seat's cohort) features two non-incumbents.

Donor explorer — every itemized contribution

Candidate	Date	Donor	Occupation (as filed)	City	Type	Amount

Expenditure explorer

Candidate	Date	Payee	Purpose	Category	Amount

Caveats, oddities & sources

Source documents are scanned, largely handwritten forms (FL DS-DE 12/13/14) read visually — names and amounts marked (?) in the underlying data are best readings; a few candidate summaries contain arithmetic that doesn't reconcile internally (noted per candidate). Verify against the originals before publishing anything.
Filing oddities spotted: Rich — a $1,000 contribution (L. Ciocci) recorded as cash; Florida caps cash contributions at $50. One Rich P4 contribution dated outside the report period. Ogden — running totals inconsistent across P1/P2/P3 as printed. Matheson — P3 originally omitted 5 contributions (fixed by amendment); one date written "5-22-25." Clarke — same donor listed twice, same day, same amount. Micciche — one expenditure dated outside its report period. Oldenborg — one expenditure dated outside period; candidate occupation field appears to read "facebook."
Ogden totals: his filed reports' running totals are internally inconsistent (P1 vs P2 vs P3 as printed); figures above use the sum of his itemized lines — $12,215 monetary + $512.48 in-kind.
Reports covered: Q1/Q2 + primary reports P1–P4 (through 7/17/26) as posted on stuartfl.gov 2026 Candidate Information. Amendments included. County/PAC context: Martin County Supervisor of Elections, We Care Martin.
Cash-on-hand figures are simple raised-minus-spent from the filings, not bank balances.