VOTER TURNOUT
Registered Voters: 756,328
Ballots Cast: 123,357
Voter Turnout: 16.31%
Source: Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections
Plant City resident Al Higginbotham won soundly the Republican nod for the countywide Hillsborough County Commission District 7 seat, besting challengers Tim Schock, Robin Lester and Don Kruse.
Higginbotham will face Democrat Patricia “Pat” Kemp, who won her primary over challenger Mark Nash.
Higginbotham received 66.48% of the vote; his closest challenger was Schock, with 7,767. Kemp received 34,052 votes, compared to Nash’s 17,996.
In the race for County Commission District 4 — Higginbotham’s former seat — Dr. Stacey White narrowly beat Janet Dougherty and Rick Cochran. White received 6,902 votes, while Dougherty received 6,221 and Cochran 4,790.
SCHOOL BOARD
All three Hillsborough County School Board contests appear headed to runoffs with no one — including incumbent and former Chairwoman April Griffin — getting a majority in the Aug. 26 primary.
In the race for District 4, which represents Eeastern Hillsborough, insurance agent Melissa Snively came close to an outright victory, but with just under half the total vote she heads to the Nov. 4 general election against Christian conservative activist Terry Kemple.
Kemple has campaigned hard against the national Common Core movement. Snively, similarly, has criticized Common Core and the version adopted by the state, the Florida Standards.
A third candidate, Dee Prether, took more than one in 10 votes.
Snively acknowledged Aug. 26 that she had hoped to win outright. But, as she came close, she said, “We were very pleased. We’ll just have to get out there and work hard, do what we need to do.”
Kemple said he will work harder on fundraising to get his message out. Although he wants voters to be able to differentiate between his positions and Snively’s, he does not intend to go negative.
“I’m about me and not about anybody else,” he said.
The countywide District 6 race pits Griffin against lawyer Dipa Shah. Despite eight years of experience and a high profile, Griffin captured fewer than a third of the votes cast in the eight-way race.
Shah, who raised more money than any of the other 13 candidates in the three races, barely edged out Paula Meckley and Stacy Hahn for second place.
In South Tampa’s District 2 race, longtime school volunteer Michelle Shimberg likely will face preschool owner Sally Harris, who squeaked past Michael Weston, a former high school teacher.
The other four members of the seven-member board do not face re-election until 2016.
Hillsborough elections officials had about 1,800 mail-in ballots left to be counted Wednesday morning, though it appeared the remaining ballots would not affect any close races.
The Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office expected to have the remaining mail-in ballots counted by the end of the day Wednesday, said the office spokeswoman Gerri Kramer.
The election results will be certified and submitted to the Florida Department of State by Sept. 2, Kramer said.