Primary concern: Could Feltner's ties to non-conservatives like Jennifer Jenkins haunt him?

Rob Feltner, a leading candidate in the race for the County Commission District 4, is described by his endorsers as a "solid conservative" and a "principled conservative,” with a "conservative temperament" who “lives his conservative values every day.”

For the most part, Feltner is exactly all of that

During his more than 10 years at the helm of his Melbourne-based political consulting firm, Conservative Campaign Solutions, he has helped elect dozens of conservative Republican candidates in and around Brevard — including Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey, State Rep. Tyler Sirois and Property Appraiser Dana Blickley, to name a few.

But about two election cycles ago, according to state records, private texts and interviews with candidates, that began to change.

More:Four Republican face off in District 4 County Commission primary marked by controversies

Starting in 2018, Feltner began either helping or trying to help campaigns for non-traditional conservatives, independents, and even Democrats, including School Board members Misty Belford and Jennifer Jenkins, the public enemies of many Brevard Republicans for their support of facemask mandates in classrooms and LGBTQ student rights.

Now, in the super-charged partisan atmosphere gripping the country and the county, those efforts could come back to haunt Feltner as he runs the final lap of the Republican primary for the D4 commission seat.

Throughout his campaign, Feltner has rarely mentioned his work as a political consultant in his advertisements and in public forums. Instead, he stresses his longtime county residency, his work ethic, his public service as a legislative aide in the Florida House, and the six years he served as director for government relations and public affairs in the Brevard County Property Appraiser’s office.

While supporters like State Rep. Erin Grall laud Feltner's "strength of character and integrity," others view Feltner as a political opportunist, who isn't above allowing his own vendettas to steer his decisions.

Feltner declined to be interviewed for this article, and many of those to whom FLORIDA TODAY reached out did not respond or declined to speak on the record about why Feltner might have wanted to help non-conservative candidates.

One of the few to regularly mention Feltner's consulting work is his opponent in the District 4 Republican primary, Sandra Sullivan. Sullivan has often accused Feltner of running campaigns for both Republicans and Democrats in the county, in an effort to call into question his conservative bona fides with some voters ahead of next week's primary election.

Campaign finance records reviewed by FLORIDA TODAY show no evidence that Feltner actually worked on any Democratic campaigns, but interviews with candidates and private emails and text messages obtained by reporters suggests he occasionally sought to help them in their successful races for office.

The business of influencing votes

"I'm in the business of influencing vote choice," declared Feltner's now defunct Conservative Campaign Solutions website, stored on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine website retrieval tool.

On his campaign website, robfeltner.com, his statement is far more straightforwardly partisan: “In 2010, Rob founded a consulting firm to help elect candidates who share his conservative beliefs.”

More:'Ghost candidate' in Brevard Commission race may have been to help Feltner

Feltner proved a savvy campaign consultant and manager, helping to elect state legislators, judges, constitutional officers, port commissioners, county commissioners, school board members and city officials throughout Brevard and Indian River counties.

What made him so effective, according to former County Commissioner Jim Barfield, was Feltner's deep understanding and ability to summon order out of the apparent chaos of the campaign process. Feltner ran Barfield's campaign in 2014.

One of the not-so-secrets to his success, Barfield said, was his ability to score bulk rates at the print shop.

"He's doing three other campaigns or whatever, he could put everyone's signs in to get done at the same time. So, you get a bulk rate on that, much less than what we were paying as individuals," Barfield said. "Same went for getting flyers printed or mail-outs printed. It just made a lot of sense."

Feltner has given most of his business to All Service Graphics, a commercial printer in Melbourne. According to state campaign finance records, Feltner has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the print shop over the years.

That access helped make Feltner a hot commodity for candidates looking for a leg up on the competition in a game where money is often everything.

Unconventional choices

For most of his career, Feltner worked with clients typical for a "true conservative," as he once called himself in a 2006 FLORIDA TODAY op-ed about his refusal to vie for the endorsement of the progressive Sierra Club during a failed first run for commissioner.

That began to change in 2018.

It was then that Feltner took a job consulting Indian River County's first openly gay candidate, attorney Nicole Menz, in her campaign for county judge. An unconventional choice for a conservative consultant, Menz nonetheless had the support of Indian River's top Republican official.

“I’m just like everybody else, other than I’m married to a female,” Menz told TCPalm's Larry Reisman in a Feb. 2, 2018, opinion column. “But I can understand this is going to take some people by surprise.”

Working with Menz was risky for Feltner, even at the time: The GOP just two years earlier had taken aim at Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court case that guaranteed the federal right to same-sex marriage, staking its position in no uncertain terms.

"In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman," its national platform read.

Feltner’s involvement appeared to pay off, as Menz won her race conclusively.

Around the same time, Feltner reached out to School Board member Misty Belford.

A lifelong independent with a fiscal responsibility streak, who had trounced Feltner's own candidate the election before, Belford said she didn't recall Feltner asking any questions about her political views before offering to her with her campaign.

More:Brevard County Commission candidates square off in Republican forum with no clear winner

"I didn't know him, but he ran my opponent's campaign in my first election, and when I beat my opponent without any professional assistance, the next election cycle he reached out and said, 'Hey, if there's anything I can do to assist. You ran an impressive campaign,'" Belford recalled.

She hired Feltner as a consultant and flew past her challenger, Republican David Meader, in the non-partisan race.

Belford has since drawn the ire of many Brevard conservatives, angry over her prior support for school masks and other COVID-19 measures during the pandemic.

As a result, she faces perhaps the toughest election of her career in her race against Republican challenger Megan Wright, who has the backing of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the powerful conservative parent group, Moms for Liberty.

Gifting Jennifer Jenkins

Many of Feltner’s supporters are hesitant to criticize his choices, not least Barfield, who says that in the political consulting business it’s sometimes necessary to follow the opportunities, wherever they come from.

The small arena of local politics, Barfield said, often makes such compromises the rule rather than the exception, especially when someone's business may depend on it.

"Local politics is different than state or federal. There's a lot of local interactions, a lot of logistics," Barfield said. "You have to look at a lot that way. Especially if it's an income, or making a living off it, that's a decision you make."

More:Charlie Crist visits Brevard for meet-and-greet at home of Jennifer Jenkins

But where those decisions could become difficult for Feltner were his efforts to get behind the 2020 campaign of School Board candidate Jennifer Jenkins, a Democrat now despised by many conservatives for her support of facemasks and LGBTQ student rights.

Campaign records show Jenkins made no payments to Feltner, and she and her then-campaign manager, now head of the Brevard Democratic Party, Pam Castellana, are adamant Feltner played no role in advising or guiding their successful run for office against incumbent Tina Descovich.

But Jenkins told FLORIDA TODAY that Feltner was keen to help her candidacy, calling her and even coming by her house. Jenkins said they went on a walk through her neighborhood, as he recounted stories about personality feuds between Brevard’s top Republicans and even recommended All Service Graphics for her print work.

“I don’t know what his true purpose was. It seemed he had a vendetta against Tina Descovich,” Jenkins recalled, saying it had to do with Descovich telling him that he could not run for County Commission in 2022 because that was what her friend and fellow School Board member Matt Susin wanted.

Feltner had previously helped Descovich with her first campaign for School Board in 2016, Descovich later said. She is the co-founder of Moms for Liberty.

“I felt like I was listening to high school feuds," Jenkins said. "It was all-in-all awkward to walk around the block listening to all this, including his rudimentary, basic campaign advice, which amounted to facts that any person would know."

More:Brevard Republicans exchange allegations of fraud after weekend straw poll

Jenkins rejected the idea that anything that Feltner told her was useful, even the print shop advice. Jenkins did use All Service Graphics for most of her print work, she said, but only because she saw from her own research that most successful campaigns in Brevard used them.

After the walk there were a few calls, Jenkins said, but nothing that she described as important. “I took his calls and played along because maybe it could help me ... but there was nothing he said that I didn’t already know,” she said. “I just played dumb and listened.”

She added that when she won the race, Feltner even sent her a congratulations gift: a solar-powered phone charger.

For her part, Descovich said there had been no "falling out" between her and Feltner and she didn't know anything about Feltner approaching Jenkins beyond a few rumors that had circulated.

"That's unfortunate, because clearly they don't align on principles and values," Descovich said. "Politics make strange bedfellows."

Eric Rogers is a watchdog reporter for FLORIDA TODAY. Contact him at 321-242-3717 or esrogers@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter: @EricRogersFT.

Bobby Block is Managing Editor for FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Block at 321-242-3710 or at bblock@floridatoday.com.