Nate Kilton and David Cook lead with top votes
No candidate for the available City Commission seat had 51% of the votes by Tuesday night at 7:21 p.m. Because of this, a run-off election between Nate Kilton and David Cook will be held May 3, at City Hall, 302 W. Reynolds St.
Nate Kilton led the race with 935 votes with 49.84% of the vote, and David Cook took second place with 554 votes with 29.53% of the vote. Ricardo Coronado had 382 votes with 20.46% of the votes.
All seven precincts and mail votes are in. The results on the Hillsborough County website are still unofficial.
"I was hoping to introduce the next City Commissioner," Art Wood, Kilton's campaign manager, said at an election after party.
With such a close call, Kilton plans to press forward.
"I don't know where I'd be in this campaign without you all," Kilton said. "Art (Wood) came out of retirement to help me."
Many of Kilton's friends, family and coworkers came out to express their continued support.
"Thirty days and we can do it," Kilton said. "We can work harder than we had before."
He has promised to unite the community along racial lines and focus on economic development.
"We will be working on that whether I'm a commissioner or not," Kilton said.
David Cook also plans to campaign hard in the run-off election. Former candidate Ricky Coronado, who had just over 20% of the votes, has already pledged his allegiance to Cook.
"We discussed that (before the election)," Coronado said.
Coronado added that he and Cook had expected that there would be a run-off between one of them with Kilton. Before the election ended, they agreed that they would support each other if one of them made it to the run-off.
"I'm going to stay in it and hit it hard," Cook said. "There's a lot of things that Ricardo (Coronado) and I have … that are like-minded."
Cook, a former law enforcement officer, is dedicated to initiatives protecting the homeless, and has voiced support for a Police Club Athletic League.
We will continue to update this story as results are released.
View the online results at Enr.ElectionsFL.org/HIL/Summary/1490/.
The run-off election will take place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on May 3, at City Hall. Early voting will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, April 29, and Saturday, April 30.
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.
