Hey, What Happened to Wayne Messam?

There are a lot of candidates still somehow running to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020. One of them is Miramar, FL, Mayor Wayne Messam. But hey, where’s he been??

Messam’s campaign has so far been so quiet that he’s been overlooked in many larger roundups of the race, like the New York Times’ lengthy questionnaire of 2020 candidates. As candidates start to drop out of the race, it’s curious that Messam is still apparently chugging along. He’s got relatively well-developed policy positions on gun control (from his perspective as head of a local jurisdiction battling with inane Florida state laws) and solving the student debt crisis, which haven’t been covered much (like every other aspect of his campaign). He has yet to qualify for a debate, and FEC filings from July show the campaign has a little more than $31,000 cash on hand.

That cash, however, doesn’t appear to always be making it to the right hands. In April, the Messam campaign apparently missed payroll for the entire campaign team, per the Miami New Times, allegedly because Messam’s wife refused to issue payments. The issue led to a relatively large exodus of staff from the campaign, which appears to be in utter disarray. Not great! And yet, he vowed in June to continue his campaign.

I reached out to the Messam campaign to ask, “Hey, what’s up?!” and I’ll update this post if I hear back. (I also asked what Messam’s goals were for the next few months of campaigning and how he wanted to use his platform to pressure other candidates.) We’ll see! Would be nice to hear from him.

This post has been updated to include reporting from the Miami New Times.