Florida Republicans overwhelmingly voted for former President Donald Trump as the GOP nominee Tuesday in the state's Presidential Preference Primary.
Trump received nearly 81% of the vote statewide. He had already secured his party’s nomination. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was second at 13.9% percent, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 3.6% percent. Both had already dropped out of the race but remained on the ballot.
Loading...
Democrats didn't hold a primary Tuesday since the party submitted only President Joe Biden’s name for the ballot.
Despite Trump's nomination, thousands of Republicans took to the polls, including Ocala Trump Voter Jeannine Ordway.
"Even though it's quote-unquote locked up, it's just an act of my will to say I stand for something strong and I want my country back," said Ordway. "And that's why I'm here."
But Cheryl Lindstrom, another Republican in Ocala, said she voted for a different candidate in what was "possibly a protest vote," but Lindstrom said she didn't want to talk about it.
"Mainly because no one's going to change anybody's mind. Regardless of whatever facts or information you might have, people are just not going to budge."
In Orange County, eight municipalities held local elections. Winter Park Commissioner Sheila DeCiccio is the city’s new mayor, receiving 71% of the vote.
Winter Park's development was top of mind for the voters in municipal races, including Daniel Wise who has lived in the area for 32 years.
"In a town like ours, it's a balancing act, trying to figure out what's going to preserve quality of life, and still be environmentally good and provide places for people to live that are close to where they might want to work or where the transportation is."
Alfredo Raton, a Winter Park resident of two years, wants to see improvements to Winter Park’s infrastructure, which motivated his trip to the precinct Tuesday morning.
"They apparently have a power grid problem here because whenever we've had some even mild storms, they've had outages. They need to do something with some of the flooding. I don't know if that's really being addressed."
Maitland voters supported a $14 million bond to improve the city’s library with nearly 62% of voters in favor of the measure.
Apopka, Eatonville, Oakland, Ocoee, Winter Garden and Edgewood also held elections.
According to unofficial results posted Tuesday night from Orange County's Supervisor of Elections, turnout in the county was 18.6%.
