Key West voters stick with their mayor but force a runoff for one city commissioner
Voters in Key West on Tuesday gave Mayor Teri Johnston a second term as she defeated two challengers by taking 59 percent of the vote, with all 10 precincts reporting.
Former city commissioner Mark Rossi took 21 percent of the vote while first-time candidate Rick Haskins picked up 19 percent.
To win outright in the nonpartisan Key West elections, a candidate must have won 50 percent plus one vote.
Johnston, 69, is an Iowa native who in 2001 became a full-time resident of Key West, where she runs a contracting business with her partner Dar Castillo.
Johnston served on the Key West City Commission from 2007 to 2015.
Rossi, 60, is another former city commissioner who owns a collection of bars and a strip club in the 200 block of Duval Street.
Haskins, 47, is a real estate broker and the only native Key Wester in the race.
Johnston received 5,060 votes on Tuesday, while Rossi took 1,793 and Haskins picked up 1,655.
Key West City Commission
Fifteen-year incumbent District 6 City Commissioner Clayton Lopez couldn’t win outright in Tuesday’s election and will face political newcomer Ryan Barnett in a runoff on Nov. 3.
Lopez, 67, picked up 47 percent of the vote while Barnett garnered 34.5 percent. John Wilson Smith, a local activist, took 18 percent.
Barnett, 36, a chiropractor who was born in Key West, raised nearly twice as much money as the veteran politician Lopez by amassing $23,293 and spending $19,779.
Lopez, at last count, has raised $12,675 and spent $3,950.
Eleven-year incumbent District 3 City Commissioner Billy Wardlow, easily won reelection against political newcomer Kimball Ingram, who until recently owned part of the Aqua nightclub on Duval Street.
Wardlow, the retired fire chief, took 68 percent of the vote. Ingram received 32 percent. The district includes parts of Stock Island and the New Town neighborhood.
Wardlow said this will be his last term.
Monroe County has 53,955 registered voters. The majority, 21,900, are Republican.
The unofficial turnout in Tuesday’s primary was 43.09 percent, substantially higher than the August 2018 primary turnout of 34 percent. The last primary before a presidential contest, in August 2016, turnout was 37.5 percent.
Monroe County had a 45 percent voter turnout on Tuesday, said Joyce Griffin, Supervisor of Elections.
County Commission
Islamorada Mayor Mike Forster will proceed to the Nov. 3 general election as the Republican candidate for the Monroe County Commission District 5 post. Forster beat Robby Majeska, 60 to 40 percent.
Forster will face Jose Peixoto, who is running without a party affiliation, on Nov. 3.
The seat is open; commissioner Sylvia Murphy of Key Largo, who has held the seat since 2006, did not run.
State Attorney
Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward beat back his former boss Mark Kohl to become the Republican candidate for the Keys’ top prosecutor, taking 67 percent of the vote.
Ward will take on Key West attorney Donald Barrett, a Democrat, on Nov. 3.
The primary contest was a battle of two longtime foes. Ward worked under Kohl in the early 2000s and defeated him in 2008 .
Kohl had been in semi-retirement since Ward defeated Catherine Vogel in 2016 — four years after she beat Ward in a Democratic primary election.
Ward, who had a nearly 30-year career as a police officer before practicing law, is running on several accomplishments, including his record of convicting corrupt public officials during his first term.
These included former schools superintendent Randy Acevedo and his wife, Monique Acevedo, who was also a high-ranking school system official at the time. They were convicted in 2009 for their part in a financial scandal that rocked the district.
