(L-R) U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (District 10), Florida House District 37 candidate Nate Douglas, Florida Sen.-elect Carlos Guillermo Smith (District 17) and Florida Rep. Anna V. Eskamani (District 42) at a Know Your Ballot event at the University of Central Florida in Orlando a few weeks before the general election on Nov. 5. (Photo by Jeremy Williams)
ORLANDO | The 2024 general election was not kind to most Democrats, in and out of Florida, as a red wave moved across the U.S. Nov. 5 led by former President Donald Trump winning another four years in the White House, making him only the second U.S. president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
Florida was called early in the evening for Trump as he won 56% of the vote to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 43%. Florida’s senate race saw incumbent Sen. Rick Scott win a second term as he defeated Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by the same margin that Trump defeated Harris by — 56% to 43%.
Locally, Democrats didn’t fare much better but saw U.S. House Representatives — and LGBTQ+ allies — Maxwell Alejandro Frost and Darren Soto win re-election to their Central Florida districts.
At the State House, Central Florida voters sent a handful of Democrats to Tallahassee, including District 40 Rep. Lavon Bracy Davis, District 42 Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, District 43 Rep. Johanna Lopez, District 45 Rep. Leonard Spencer and District 46 Rep. Jose Alvarez.
The local State Senate races saw Kristen Arrington defeat Jose Martinez in the District 25 race. She will join former State House Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith in the senate next session as Guillermo Smith won his District 17 seat in an uncontested race during the primary election.
The rest of Central Florida’s state and national seats went Republican with LGBTQ+ candidates Nate Douglas, who went up against Republican Susan Plasencia in State House District 37, and Vance Ahrens, who took on Florida Rep. Randy Fine for the State Senate District 19 seat, coming up short.
In Orange County, voters decided on three county commissioner seats, electing to have Nicole Wilson, Mayra Uribe and Kelly Semrad represent them in Districts 1, 3 and 5, respectively.
Openly gay Supervisor of Elections candidate Wes Hedge finished fourth in his race, taking in 18.6% of the vote. The winner was Karen Castor Dentel, who received 40.24% of the vote, followed by Sunshine Linda-Marie Grund with 21.60% and Dan Helm with 19.56%.
Osceola County voters re-elected Democrat Marcos Lopez as their county sheriff. Lopez defeated his Republican challenger, Donnie Martinez, 57.57% to 42.43%. In Kissimmee, Jackie Espinosa beat John Cortes 60.33%-39.67% to become Kissimmee’s mayor.
In Bevard County, voters elected a number of city mayors and commissioners, including Paul Alfrey as mayor of Melbourne, who won with 50.84% of the vote against Kathy Meehan (25.92%) and Hazel Buggs (23.24%); Andrews Connors, who narrowly won mayor of Titusville against Vickie Conklin 50.84%-49.16%; and Keith Capizzi, who won mayor of Cocoa Beach against Dave Netterstrom 55.37%-44.63%.
Statewide, Floridians saw three of the six constitutional amendments fail at the ballot box, most notably Amendment 3, which would have legalized recreational marijuana, and Amendment 4, which would have removed government interference from abortion. While both amendments received more than half of the vote, amendments require a minimum of 60% YES votes to pass. Amendment 3 received 55.9% YES votes and Amendment 4 received 57.1% YES votes.
You can see full election results by going to WESH 2’s General Election Results page here.
