Who won, who lost, who’s headed for a runoff and a recount after the primary

After Tuesday’s primary, two long-serving Democrats are headed back to Tallahassee. The Ninth Circuit Public Defender's Office has a woman at the helm for the first time in its history. Two races are slated for runoffs. And the District 1 Orange County Commission race is so close — five ballots at last count or .02 percent of the total ballots cast — state law mandates a recount.

Thompson, Antone win races

In the Florida legislature, Democrat State Sen. Geraldine Thompson of Senate District 15 and Democrat State Rep. Bruce Antone of House District 41 are headed back to Tallahassee, having won their races by wide margins. 

Thompson successfully beat Randolph Bracy III, who had held the District 15 seat before leaving the Florida Senate to run unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022 and was attempting a comeback by running on his past achievements without much of a plana for the future. Turnout was high for this often rancorous district race. With 39,486 ballots cast, Thompson earned 23,991 votes and 60.76 percent of the vote while Bracy received 15,495 ballots and 39.24 percent of the vote. This marks Bracy’s second significant political loss in two years. 

During the race, each accused the other of not living in the district. Bracy threatened a lawsuit (never filed) if Thompson did not drop out of the race and repeatedly made vicious claims about his former colleague and his mother’s longtime friend. Endorsing Thompson after their joint interview with the editorial board, the Orlando Sentinel called Bracy “churlish to the point of actual insult.” VoxPopuli described his campaign as “long on grievance and short on substantive policy …” 

Thompson had the backing of the entire Orange County Democratic delegation, including Bracy’s sister, Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis, who is running for re-election in District 40.

“My opponent introduced vulgarity, deception and disrespect into the campaign,” Thompson told VoxPopuli Wednesday via text message. “Voters rejected that and conclusively indicated that they wish me to continue the work that I have been doing. I am now completely refocused on serving the people and not responding to the distraction that was a major part of the campaign.” 

In House District 41, Antone handily beat first-time candidate Janét Buford Johnson to win an eighth term in office. A total of 8,276 ballots were cast, and Antone received 5,246 of them, compared to Johnson’s 3,030.  

“I’m thankful the residents and voters in District 41 voted to send me back to Tallahassee for another two-year term in the Florida Legislature!!” Antone told VoxPopuli Wednesday via text message. Antone added that he had “unfinished business to tackle and complete” and that he was “excited and thrilled” to continue to work for the residents of District 41. 

Unfinished business was why he said he wanted to return to Tallahassee when he spoke at the African American Chamber of Commerce for Central Florida Hob Nob last month. Then, he highlighted three tasks that were high priorities: implement a program to help reduce women’s maternal mortality; institute scholarships for minority students to attend medical school; and bring the Florida Museum of Black History (currently slated for St. Augustine) to the Greater Orlando region. 

PD Office gets female leader

After an ugly race in which she was falsely accused of creating a toxic environment in the Public Defender’s Office, Democrat and criminal defense attorney Melissa Vickers was elected Public Defender in an overwhelming victory over fellow Democrat Lenora Easter. She is the first woman to helm the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court’s Public Defender’s Office.

“It feels amazing!” Vickers texted VoxPopuli Tuesday night after the results were posted. “I’ve worked toward this goal since I was a 18 years old,” she said. She added that she was “passionate about the office and clients who have trusted me to serve.” 

She said her “first priority is to ensure balance and communication in the office and support the current attorneys and staff so we hit the ground running in January.” She said that the office will also “be rejoining the Florida Public Defender Association.”  

Hyman advances

Across the aisle, in the closely watched Republican primary for state attorney, criminal defense attorney Seth Hyman beat Thomas Feiter, another criminal defense attorney, with 29,965 of the 46,527 ballots cast and 64.4 percent of the vote. 

Hyman, who had been endorsed by the Orange County GOP, said he felt “great” about his win in a Wednesday phone interview with VoxPopuli. 

“I have been running this race for a year and a half, and I started this journey with the end goal of making sure that [former state attorney] Monique Worrell was not reelected to office,” he said. “I strongly disagreed with how she ran that office, and I wanted to make sure that I did everything I could to prevent that from happening again, so I put in a ton of work.” 

That's included attending public events every weekend for the last 18 months and knocking on doors daily for four to five hours each day for the past few months.

“People have responded to my message and my emphasis on protecting victims of crime and bringing justice to the community,” Hyman said. “People feel that the state attorney's office under Monique Worrell and [former state attorney] Aramis Ayala was out of step with what they wanted to see out of a state attorney's office.”

Hyman now faces Worrell, who was removed from office last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and incumbent State Attorney Andrew Bain, an independent, who was appointed by DeSantis to serve out Worrell's term.

Webster, Truenow log easy wins 

In the Congressional District 11 race, Republican Congressman Daniel Webster won over political newcomer, veteran and geophysicist John McCloy with 79.5 percent of the vote in Orange County and 77.08 percent of the vote in Lake County. Webster faces Democrat Barbie Harden Hall on Nov. 5.  

Republican State Rep. Keith Truenow, known as the “Sodfather,” won the Republican primary with 65.36 percent of the vote in Orange County and 67.47 percent of the vote in Lake County. He faces Democrat Stephanie Duke on Nov. 5. 

“Thank you to EVERYONE who made this journey possible!” Truenow posted on his campaign Facebook page at 8:22 p.m., shortly after the results had been finalized Tuesday night. “#teamtruenow is moving on to November!”

District 4 goes to runoff 

The District 4 race for Orange County School Board is headed for a runoff Nov. 5 between longtime educator Anne Douglas and Kyle Goudy who does business development for the tee time reservation site GolfNow. 

In the three-way race, Goudy netted 8,556 of the ballots for 37.25 percent of the vote while Douglas earned 7,541 votes and 32.83 percent of the vote. Jake Petroski, also an educator, who had received endorsements from the Classroom Teachers Association, the Orlando Sentinel and VoxPopuli, finished a distant third with 6,874 ballots and 29.92 percent of the vote. 

“Voters in School Board District 4 have spoken, and they are tired of the extremist policies coming out of Tallahassee,” Douglas told VoxPopuli Wednesday in a text message. “I’m excited that many voters chose me, but this is far from over. We need fighters to protect our kids, our parents and our teachers. I’m going to fight hard to make sure that a we win in November and our kids win after November.”

VoxPopuli reached out to Goudy Wednesday morning for a comment via text message, which he said he would send. We will update the story if he does. 

Tuesday night on Facebook, Goudy thanked everyone who "made this victory tonight possible" and said, "We look forward to continue showing that I am the candidate with the right mix of education and business experience. We will continue working diligently to meet members of the community and make sure that we understand their concerns as it relates to education in Orange County. On to November!"

District 1 goes to recount 

The District 1 Orange County Commission race, as we reported Tuesday night, is currently in limbo. Incumbent Commissioner Nicole Wilson has a five-vote lead. According to the Supervisor of Elections spokesperson Christopher Heath, there are currently 175 mail-in ballots that need to be “cured,” and some of those are likely from District 1. Volunteers from both campaigns have lists of voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected and are reaching out to them to have them sign affidavits and fix their ballots, the Orlando Sentinel reported. 

Thursday after 5 p.m., there will be a machine recount, according to Florida Statute 102.141. If, after the machine recount, either Arthur or Wilson is behind by a quarter of 1 percent or less of the votes cast, then there will be a hand recount of the overvotes and undervotes, as mandated by Statute 102.166. (Overvotes are ballots in which more than one candidate is chosen; undervotes are when no candidates are chosen.)

Incumbent judges win

In Group 15, attorney Alicia Peyton very nearly knocked Circuit Court Judge Jeff Ashton off the bench. But with 47.81 percent of the vote between Orange and Osceola counties, she’s just a bit shy of the 50 percent threshold required to win the three-way race outright between herself, Ashton and Chris Mack, the general counsel from the Osceola County Clerk and Comptroller’s Office. Now, she and Ashton as the top two vote-getters, are headed to a runoff Nov. 5. 

“I am incredibly honored to have received 47.81 percent of the vote from the voters of Orange and Osceola Counties,” Peyton told VoxPopuli Wednesday via text. “As we move on now to November my deep commitment to ur community remind steadfast and I look forward to earning that last 2.29 percent and becoming the next circuit court judge in Orange and Osceola  Counties.” 

In other judicial races, LaShawda K. Jackson beat out assistant public defender Joy Goodyear to claim the open Group 5 circuit court seat. 

Otherwise, it was a good night for incumbent judges. In Group 37, Judge Tanya Davis Wilson routed political newcomer Jason Willis. In Group 43 Judge Craig McCarthy — the sole judge to raise his hand at a League of Women Voters event when asked who was a member of The Federalist Society — narrowly eked out a win against Stephen Brown, the attorney who announced on Facebook that he was pro-choice. In Orange County Court Group 11, Judge Adam McGinnis held off a challenge from former state attorney Lisa Gong Guerrero, winning 53.58 percent of the 128,351 ballots cast. 

SIDEBAR: Who's Voting and How?

In an election that didn’t attract many voters, more Democrats turned out for Orange County’s Aug. 20 primary election than Republicans. Just under 17 percent of the county’s 811,612 registered voters participated Tuesday with Democrats voting 66,142 ballots, compared with Republicans’ 46,947 — a 19,195 ballot difference. 

Independents accounted for 15,131 ballots — a fraction of the nearly quarter-million unaffiliated voters in the county. Other parties contributed 1,347 ballots.

Mail-in voting was way down, thanks to GOP legislation that wiped out all standing mail-in ballot requests at the beginning of 2023 and required voters to request those ballots again. In Orange County the number of mail-in ballots dropped 52 percent from 2020, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The new legislation requires voters to make those requests every two years now, rather than every four. (By the way, it’s not too early to request a mail-in ballot for the general election; the deadline to do that is Oct. 24.) 

Even so, in Tuesday’s election, most voters still voted by mail, with 56,636 ballots mail-in ballots cast — 30,601 by Democrats and 17,591 by Republicans. More Democrats chose to vote early (20,235 v. 13,832) than Republicans who voted on Election Day (15,524 v. 15,306). More than twice as many independents voted by mail (7,787) as voted early  (3,633) or on Election Day (3,711). 

Fabio Braggion contributed to this story.