Jesse Scheckner
Voters in Broward, Florida’s bluest county, cast ballots Tuesday in a Primary where every partisan race on the ballot for a local public office had only Democrats running.
Florida Politics reported on a few of the contests voters weighed in on, including a Republican Primary for Florida’s 23rd Congressional District that nonprofit executive Joe Kaufman soundly won.
He’ll face Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz in November.
Former Broward Commissioner Barbara Sharief emerged victorious from a three-way Democratic Primary for Senate District 35 after spending just under $547,000. With $1.2 million — mostly her money — spent over the past four years on gaining the SD 35 seat, she’s now closer than ever to doing so with only a lone, underfunded GOP foe waiting in the wings.
Oakland Park Mayor Mitch Rosenwald, meanwhile, is skipping the General Election altogether after knocking off three opponents in a Democratic Primary in House District 98. No Republican qualified for the race, so the seat that state Rep. Patricia Hawkins-Williams will leave soon is his.
Many other races reached conclusions of varying decisiveness last night. Let’s take a look.
Congressional
In a Republican race for the right to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson in Florida’s 24th Congressional District, Jesus Gabriel Navarro beat Patti Gonzalez to clinch a spot on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Navarro outpaced Gonzalez in Miami-Dade, which contains most of CD 24, by 14 percentage points (9,581 votes). In Broward, just 65 votes separated the two candidates, but it was enough to earn Navarro a 12-point lead overall.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz blew her lone Primary challenger, Jen Perelman, out of the water with an 83% share of 43,780 votes. She’ll face retired FBI agent Chris Eddy, who beat small-business owner Bryan Leib in a Republican Primary 65-35%.
State
Democratic state Rep. Daryl Campbell won a second term representing House District 99 after defeating a single Primary challenger, nonprofit executive Joshauwa Brown, 74-26%.
Clerk
Brenda Forman won a third term as Broward Clerk without help from the local chapter of her political party. A voter guide the Broward Democratic Party produced ahead of the Primary did not include her.
Instead, the party recommended voters support her Primary challenger, Charles Hall, who joined Annette Daniels in losing to the incumbent Tuesday.
Forman took 45% of the vote compared to 39% for Hall and 16% for Daniels. No Republican ran.
Tax Collector
Broward voters Tuesday picked their first Tax Collector, a job whose duties county employees have long handled, but one mandated to be done by an elected official in accordance with a 2018 state referendum.
They selected Abbey Ajayi, who has worked in the county’s tax office for nearly a decade and currently serves as its operations manager.
She defeated Dwight Forrest and Perry Thurston with 35% of the vote. Forrest and Thurston each got 32.5%, with only 32 votes separating them.
Because only Democrats ran, Ajayi’s victory Tuesday ended the contest.
Supervisor of Elections
It was hardly a contest between incumbent Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott and his lone Democratic Primary challenger, Russell Bathulia.
Eighty-six percent of 171,274 voters picked Scott, who won the job four years ago.
School Board
For two Broward School Board members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Tuesday was a veritable bloodbath. Both lost badly.
In District 1, Republican Daniel Foganholi placed last behind Chris Canter and the winner, Democratic lawyer Maura Bulman, who took 51% of the vote. Foganholi, whom DeSantis put on the Board in December 2022, got 20%.
Appointed School Board member Torey Alston, another Republican DeSantis appointed, placed 32 points behind Democratic social worker Rebecca Thompson in a head-to-head contest for the District 2 seat.
District 3 member Sara Leonardi won re-election with 70% of the vote. District 5 member Jeff Holness and at-large Seat 9 member Debbie Hixon did the same with 76% and 71% of the vote, respectively.
The School Board is technically nonprofit, as are its races.
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The results of Tuesday’s election have not yet been officially certified. That will take place next week.
Broward voters this Primary requested one-third the number of vote-by-mail ballots as they did in the 2020 election. The county also saw a roughly 40% drop in Primary participation, compared to four years ago.
On Tuesday, 195,126 of 1.1 million Broward voters (17.5%) cast ballots in the Primary. In 2020, 317,160 of 1.2 million voters did (26%).
In 2016, 188,217 of 1.1 million voters (16.5%) voted by mail or in person. In 2012, 117,604 of 1.1 million Broward voters (10.7%) participated.
