Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Scott PowersNovember 26, 2018

Orange County Democrats flipped three seats in the Florida House and, as state Reps. Geraldine Thompson, Anna Eskamani and Joy Goff-Marcil make their debuts, they’re looking for practical starts. On Nov. 6, the three Democrats flipped the partisan strength of Orange County’s delegation from five Republicans and four Democrats, to seven Democrats and two Republicans. Thompson has been […]

Scott PowersNovember 20, 2018

HomeAway, the vacation rental-home marketing company, is moving forward with efforts to collect taxes from its home-sharing clients for Florida and several major counties. The company, with its affiliated companies and brands including VRBO and VacationRentals.com, is doing so with new deals cut individually with Orange, Pinellas and Lee counties to collect and remit local […]

Scott PowersNovember 15, 2018

Orange, Seminole, Lake, and Osceola counties’ anticipated hand recount of ballots for the Florida gubernatorial and Agriculture Commissioner races would only involve a few thousand ballots out of the nearly 1 million cast in those Central Florida counties. There were 478,122 ballots cast and machine recounted in Orange County for the Nov. 8 election but […]

Scott PowersNovember 15, 2018

The Orange County vote canvassing board has completed its machine recounts of the 2018 election with very little change in the final tabulations of contested races. Orange is the first of Florida’s seven big, urban counties — which include Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Duval — to report the machine-recount numbers. It’s among […]

Scott PowersNovember 15, 2018

Orange County Mayor-elect Jerry Demings is expecting to start making announcements about his transition no earlier than next week, and, so far, he has been keeping his staffing choices close to his vest while his administration’s core values and agenda still are being openly debated. Demings won the Mayor’s job in the Aug. 28 election and […]

Scott PowersNovember 12, 2018

Railing against what they call a Republican effort to discredit recounts through legal intimidation and allegations of fraud, Democrats state Sen. Linda Stewart, Reps. Carlos Guillermo Smith and state Rep.-elect Anna Eskamani insisted Monday the process just needs to proceed now in calm and confidence. “Calm down,” Stewart said Monday on the front steps of the […]

Scott PowersNovember 8, 2018

Few election losses anywhere in 2016 drew more Republican vows for revenge than when Stephanie Murphy came out of nowhere, dubbed the “Girl Rescued at Sea” for her life story as an infant in a family who fled Vietnam on a rickety boat, and stunned 12-term Republican U.S. Rep. John Mica in Florida’s 7th Congressional […]

Scott PowersNovember 7, 2018

Florida might not have seen a blue wave, but Orange County certainly did. A pink one, too. The waves also rolled through neighboring Seminole County, where they didn’t wash away much Republican establishment, but likely scared plenty. The results of Tuesday’s election means that for the first time in more than 20 years Democrats will […]

Scott PowersNovember 6, 2018

In election contests that were far from mysteries, voters returned Orlando Democratic state Reps. Carlos Guillermo Smith and Amy Mercado, and Orlando Republican state Rep. Rene Plasencia to office in eastern Orange County Tuesday. Mercado and Smith are leaders of the progressive wing of House Democrats and fended off token challenges from late-qualified Republicans George […]

Scott PowersNovember 6, 2018

Democratic U.S. Rep. Darren Soto won himself a second term as the only Puerto Rican member of Congress from Florida, representing Florida’s most Puerto-Rican district. Soto, of Celebration defeated Republican businessman Wayne Liebnitzky Tuesday in a rematch of the election that sent Soto to Congress in 2018.This time Soto won 58 percent to 42 percent, […]

Tag: Orange County
World Equestrian Center. Image via worldequestriancenter.com.

Orange County Democratic House newbies seeking practical issues

HomeAway signing tourist tax collection agreements

Hand recounts only would involve a few thousand ballots in Central Florida

Orange County machine recount finished with no discernible changes

Jerry Demings keeping Orange County mayoral transition plans close to vest

Linda Stewart: Calm down and let the elections officers do their work

‘Girl rescued at sea’ now riding high toward Democratic-controlled Congress

As Trump turns Florida more red, Orange County sparkles blue

Amy Mercado, Rene Plasencia, Carlos Smith re-elected

Darren Soto coasts to easy re-election in CD 9