Jesse Scheckner
Sherri Hodies is Monroe’s new Supervisor of Elections and Jim Scholl is keeping his County Commission seat following a lopsided election night where every federal, state and county race went the GOP’s way.
With early and mail-in ballots fully tallied and all 33 precincts reporting, Hodies had 53% of the vote to defeat former House Democratic Leader Ron Saunders. She’ll replace Supervisor Joyce Griffin, a Democrat who confirmed in February 2022 that she would not seek re-election to the post she first won in 2012.
Scholl, a former City Manager of Key West whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to the County Commission in April 2022, will continue to serve District 3 on the five-member panel after defeating Democrat Chris Massicotte with 62% of the vote. Scholl is the county’s current Mayor Pro Tem.
Monroe saw major voter participation this cycle. More than 85.5% of the county’s 52,043 registered voters cast ballots by the time polls closed Tuesday.
It was Rhonda Rebman Lopez’s first General Election as Chair of the Republican Party of Monroe, and she said she thoroughly enjoyed the experience and was elated with the results.
“Everybody just stepped up. It was a combination effort, a grassroots effort, and it could be a little intimidating when you’re running someone like Sherri who was a first-time candidate against someone like Ron Saunders who has been established in the community for decades, but she had a lot of administrative experience in her background, and I knew she was a hard worker,” she told Florida Politics. “Bottom line, she just outworked him.”
Islamorada state Rep. Jim Mooney won a third term serving House District 120, which spans all of the Florida Keys and a southern part of Miami-Dade County. Sixty-four percent of Monroe voters chose him over Democrat drag show performer Michael Travis. Miami-Dade voters sided with Mooney too by a 22-percentage-point margin.
Mooney told Florida Politics on Wednesday morning that his and Travis’ race was cordial, with the candidates agreeing not to go negative against one another.
“It was a very clean race, which I’m happy about. My last two elections were at best disgusting when it came to the nonsense of politics. This was very nice,” he said. “He had reasons for running. I know what we need in this district which, while more red than blue now, I still consider to be very purple and very eclectic between the military bases and farming and the ecosystem. There’s a lot of nuances to it.”
President-elect Donald Trump won the top of the Monroe ticket with 58.6% support. A slightly smaller share of voters (57%) backed U.S. Sen. Rick Scott for re-election. Even more (62%) voted for U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez.
Other winners in the county included:
— Aaron Castillo, who defeated Marci Rose for the right to succeed Clayton Lopez on the Key West City Commission.
— Islamorada Mayor Joseph “Buddy” Pinder, who won re-election to Seat 1 on the Islamorada Village Council alongside new members Steve Friedman in Seat 2, Deb Gillis in Seat 3 and Don Horton in Seat 4. They defeated Van Hunter Cadenhead, Anna Richards, Mary Barley and Tom Raffenello, respectively.
— Marathon Council member Kenny Matlock and new member Jody Del Gaizo, who outpaced three opponents on Election Day. Del Gaizo will replace Luis Gonzalez, who must leave office due to term limits.
