Just over one out of every six registered Osceola County voters cast a ballot in last week’s 2022 primary election.
In total, 44,286 of the county’s nearly 250,000 who are registered — the 2021 estimate said there’s 400,000 total residents — producing a turnout of 17.77 percent. Most Central Florida counties were above 20 percent.
As early voting was wrapping up, while Supervisor of Elections Mary Jane Arrington said last week, the percentage of ballots cast early and on Election Day is about 50/50, about 7,200 ballots came in at the eight county sites during early voting, and over 12,000 were cast at local precincts on Tuesday, Aug. 23.
Two Kissimmee City Commission seats were decided — Angela Eady and Janette Martinez will be sworn in next month — and Cheryl Grieb defended her County Commission seat, as did Terry Castillo on the School Board. Castillo will be joined by Erika Booth on the dais.
With all that wrapped up, here’s the runoffs and new races that will appear on your Nov. 8 ballots in Osceola County:
County Commission, district 2: incumbent Viviana Janer runs for a third term against Beulah “Rosita” Farquharson, who has made multiple runs for local office;
School Board, district 4: Will “Coach” Fonseca and Heather Kahoun take their campaigns to a run-off;
St. Cloud City Council, seat 4: Ken Gilbert and Tom Lord face off in a two-man race;
St. Cloud City Council, seat 5: Shawn Fletcher and Jeffrey Rivera came out of a four-way primary last week and will keep going;
Florida House of Representatives, district 35: Incumbent Fred Hawkins, Jr., winner of a three-way primary, meets Democrat Rishi Bagga, who narrowly won a primary that needed a re-count against Tom Keen;
District 45: Republican Carolina Amesty won her five-way primary and faces Democrat Allie Braswell for the right to represent Celebration, Champions Gate and southwestern Orange County;
District 46: Incumbent Democrat Kristen Arrington meets Republican Christian De La Torre and Dr. Ivan Rivera, who runs with no party affiliation;
District 47: Anthony Nieves made it out of a close three-way Democratic primary in order to meet Republican Paula Stark;
State Senate, district 25: Just like four years ago, incumbent Democrat Victor Torres will go against Republican Peter Vivaldi;
U.S. House of Representatives, district 9: Democrat Darren Soto runs for his fourth term on Capitol Hill against Scotty Moore, who dominated his Republican primary;
U.S. Senate: incumbent Republican Marco Rubio gets a challenge from Democrat Val Demings, the former Orlando Police chief and a three-term member of the U.S. House, for the right to serve the state of Florida.
Florida governor: Democrat Charlie Crist, who garnered 55 percent of the Osceola County vote in the primary, will run against current Gov. Ron DeSantis and Libertarian candidate Hector Roos.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list of the races on the Nov. 8 ballot. Local communities may have races for their Community Development Districts, and the ballot will include a referendum on extending or canceling a local county one-cent sales tax.
