State Sen. Paula Dockery will announce a decision next week on whether to enter the governor race and won't comment on the accuracy of a news report that she'll announce she's running.
Dockery has said she's leaning strongly toward entering the race, in which she would oppose Attorney General Bill McCollum in a Republican primary.
Dockery's hometown paper, the Lakeland Ledger, published an online report Friday citing unnamed Republican sources saying she will announce next week she's entering the race.
Dockery wouldn't comment on the accuracy of the Ledger report.
"I am going to make my decision known next week. I have a lot of friends and supporters in Lakeland who are urging to me to run and they're getting very excited."
Dockery, 48, has been in the state Legislature since 1996 - six years in the state House and since then in the Senate.
She has said she never considered running for governor until the last legislative session, when she raised her political profile by successfully leading a fight against a proposed deal for the state to take over CSX railway lines for a commuter rail system. Though the deal was favored by most leading Republicans, Dockery said it was financially disadvantageous for the state.
Dockery would enter the primary against McCollum as an underdog, both in campaign funding and name recognition. She has never run a statewide race; he has run twice unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and won the attorney general's seat in 2006.
The primary winner is expected to face Democrat Alex Sink, who so far has no opposition in her party's primary.
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