Editorial: Winners, losers emerged in Tuesday primary

Winners and losers, plus some also-rans, emerged Tuesday night when results of the primary were tallied by elections offices in Collier and Lee counties. A quick recap:

Winners:

Collier County Public School supporters emerged as victors with a clear majority Tuesday night in two races. We see the margin of victory as a statement of significant community support for Superintendent Kamela Patton.

In District 2, Stephanie Lucarelli won more than 59 percent of the vote and in District 4, Erick Carter won more than 57 percent. In the recent Naples Daily News forum, they identified themselves as Patton backers while their opponents called themselves “neutral.”

The 32.4 percent Collier turnout Tuesday was the highest in a primary in at least a decade, much better than 21 percent in 2014.

Live Updates: 2016 Primary Election in Southwest Florida

Winners:

The landslide winners of the night were most of the constitutional officers — independently elected leaders who run offices within county government — in Collier and Lee.

A remarkable lopsided win went to Collier Property Appraiser Abe Skinner, now in his mid-80s, who received 86 percent of the vote to gain four more years in an office he’s held since 1991.

Probably due to his brusque nature, Lee Sheriff Mike Scott always seems to draw a challenger, but the results turn out much the same each time. Scott overwhelmingly won the Republican Party nomination with about 85 percent and now faces a no-party-affiliated candidate Nov. 8.

We’d have to put the win by Dwight Brock, the Collier clerk of courts and comptroller, over Collier Commissioner Georgia Hiller into the landslide category because both are well-known and drew distinctive lines in the sand in a county bill-paying dispute. Brock, who has held the job for about 24 years, received 69.3 percent of the vote.

2016 Primary Election: Unofficial exit poll results in Collier, Lee

Losers:

Citizens in County Commission districts in Collier and south Lee counties were losers because close races and vote totals point out flaws in the election system. This assessment isn’t about who won and lost, because the field of candidates was impressive and there were “also rans,” but nobody deserves the label of “loser.”

The GOP nominees who won are exemplary, and perhaps the results would have been the same, but there simply were too few votes in these contests for us to find complete comfort.

In the commission race in south Lee County, an impostor candidate listed as a write-in for the Nov. 8 ballot shut out thousands of unaffiliated voters and Democrats in a two-Republican race that saw incumbent Larry Kiker (50.8 percent) defeat challenger Dick Anderson (49.2 percent) by about 1,000 votes. State lawmakers need to fix this broken primary system which has been manipulated since voters intended to fix it in 1998 with a constitutional amendment.

In the commission races in Collier, let’s take District 5 for example. Bill McDaniel emerged the apparent victor in securing the GOP nomination with 1,664 votes. Because commissioners run by district, not countywide, that vote total represents about 1.6 percent of the nearly 99,100 registered Republicans in the county. McDaniel faces a Democratic foe Nov. 8.

Loser:

Gov. Rick Scott wasn’t on the ballot, but one candidate he supported took a shellacking. He’d supported friend Carlos Beruff, a homebuilder, who ran as an outsider trying to unseat Sen. Marco Rubio. Beruff was pulling about 20 percent of the vote statewide to Rubio’s 70-plus percent in the GOP primary. Others supported by Scott fared well, notably Rep. Kathleen Passidomo who defeated longtime House member Matt Hudson in a state Senate race, and Francis Rooney, who won the GOP nomination for a Southwest Florida congressional seat.

Winners:

Veteran Naples state Rep. Kathleen Passidomo in Florida Senate 28, Byron Donalds in inland House District 80 and businessman Bob Rommel in coastal House District 106 emerged as winners as the new Collier County legislative delegation takes shape. Their immediate first challenge lies ahead. It’s called “find your opponent.” Phantom write-ins are on the ballot in each district Nov. 8.

Winners:

Three Lee County School Board races drew four to six candidates, and the supervisor of elections contest attracted five hopefuls. We believe Lee voters won because there was no majority gained in any of these four elections, so there will be a chance to decide these seats Nov. 8 when turnout will be higher.