After a long and contentious campaign, Port St. Lucie will have a new mayor after Steven Giordano defeated Shannon M. Martin.
Unofficial results showed Giordano at 45,499 votes, or 51.47 percent, and Martin at 42,898 votes, or 48.53 percent. Giordano will be sworn in later this month.
In addition to a new mayor, the city will have other new faces on the dais during City Council meetings with two new council members, one elected during the primary in August and the other on Tuesday.
In the runoff race for Port St. Lucie City Council District 1, Rick Meltzer took the seat with 56.77 percent of the votes over Indony P. Jean Baptiste’s 43.23 percent.
In the St. Lucie County Commission race, incumbent Larry D. Leet (R) retained his District 2 seat over Rolin Dorsainvil (D), with Leet getting 53.93 percent of the vote over Dorsainvil’s 46.07 percent.
Incumbent and Chair Jaime Fowler (R) lost her District 4 commission seat to Jean Eddy Leroy (D). In the three-way race, Nicholas R. Burgos (NPA) received 2.72 percent of the votes; Fowler 48.03 percent; and Leroy 49.25 percent.
St. Lucie schools board member Donna Mills retained her seat for School Board District 3 with almost 94 percent of votes. Write-in candidates took the balance.
In District 5, incumbent Troy Ingersoll held on to his seat over Lisa Kessler by a razor thin lead of just over 1 percent.
State Rep. Dana Trabulsy (R) is headed back to Tallahassee after winning 50.85 percent of the votes over Jennifer Massey (D), who garnered 49.15 percent.
State House District 85 newcomer Anthony Bonna Sr. (R) is headed to Tallahassee after winning the bi-county race. In St. Lucie, Bonna received 46.23 percent of the votes to Wayne Richter’s (D) 53.20 percent and Amr Metwally’s .44 percent.
In other statewide races, St. Lucie voters favored Democrats for attorney general, chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture, but all three Republicans — James Uthmeier, Blaise Ingoglia and Wilton Simpson — won their respective races.
County residents also preferred Angie Nixon (D) in the U.S. senate race, James T. Martin (D) for Congress and David Jolly (D) for governor, but Ashley Moody (R), Brian Mast (R) and Byron Donalds (R) won the seats.
Several referendums were on the ballot on Election Day, with the following local ones passing – yes to a 0.5 percent infrastructure surtax; yes to continue to levy 1 mill for 4 years for operational needs of the school district; approval of funds for the mosquito control district. A City of Port St. Lucie ordinance to go from one to two solid waste pick up days failed by a large percentage.
Two state constitutional amendments passed: a farm equipment tax exemption on agricultural land, and increasing the homestead exemption. A third state amendment to create a budget stabilization fund failed.
According to the St. Lucie County Board of Elections unofficial results, 139,005 of the 246,187 registered voters cast a ballot in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with about 71 percent of the ballots advance votes and 29 percent Election Day in-person votes.
It was a long night prior to the election as major flooding in the county made it necessary to change voting locations and move polling locations that were already set up. Election officials and observers remained at the Fort Pierce election headquarters until 1 a.m. until 62 out of 62 precincts were counted and the unofficial results tabulated.
A more detailed account of the Nov. 3 election will be featured in the next edition of the St. Lucie Voice to be published on Nov. 19.