In the Keys, a mayor and a school board member won again. State House race is a close call

Key West voters again stuck with Mayor Teri Johnston on Tuesday, reelecting her to a third term by 56% of the vote over former city commissioner Margaret Romero.

But even in a small city where the official motto is “One Human Family,” the mayor said the local races in 2022 included some contention.

“There was some mud slung in a couple of them, which you hate to see in Key West elections,” Johnston said Tuesday night at the Harvey Government Center after the results were announced.

“Being a candidate in politics in 2022 is a challenge at best,” Johnston said.

She didn’t give any examples but added that she represents all of Key West.

“I’m going to be a mayor for all people,” said Johnston. “I always have been.”

Johnston, 71, a former city commissioner from 2007-2015 who co-owns a contracting business with her partner Dar Castillo, was first elected mayor in 2018.

She was reelected in August 2020, beating two challengers with 59% of the vote. But that was before COVID-19 vaccines were available and prior to her ordering Duval Street to close down at 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.

Johnston’s New Year’s Eve curfew, which she extended for three days, and support for mask mandates put her at odds with some business owners.

Romero said she isn’t done with city government.

“I had an awful lot of small businesses that were really behind me, and I had tons of people from the service industry behind me,” Romero said Tuesday night.

Close call for House

The District 120 state House Republican primary was too close to call Tuesday night, but it looks like incumbent state Rep. James “Jim” Mooney may have won a very narrow rematch against Rhonda Rebman-Lopez, whom he only edged out of the 2020 primary by 148 votes.

This year actually looks like it’s going to be much closer.

District 120 includes all of the Florida Keys and Monroe County, as well as the southernmost portion of Miami-Dade County, including parts of Homestead. In the Keys, Mooney received nearly 50% of the vote — 4,204 votes to Rebman-Lopez’s 3,470.

There was a third candidate in the primary, Robert Scott Allen, a Keys house painting contractor who only raised about $150 for his campaign and garnered slightly more than 1,136 votes as of Tuesday night in both counties.

But, just as in 2020, the Miami-Dade votes caused uncertainty in the race that made an election night decision just out of reach. In fact, just as in 2020, Rebman-Lopez was ahead of Mooney by significant margins on the mainland — 1,438 votes to Mooney’s 747.

With the results down to a difference of just over 40 votes, Rebman-Lopez said in a text message to the Miami Herald that there will be a recount.

Mooney, 71, is a former councilman for the Village of Islamorada, a tenure that also saw him serve as mayor of the small Upper Keys municipality. He is a real estate agent by trade and grew up in the Keys.

The campaign was once again defined largely by negative TV ads that questioned each others’ conservative bona fides. Rebman-Lopez, 57, in her spots accused Mooney of not supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis’ agenda.

The state Republican Party, which supports Mooney, ran ads attempting to link Rebman-Lopez with Andrew Gillum, the disgraced former Tallahassee mayor whom DeSantis defeated in a close contest in the 2018 gubernatorial race.

Mooney’s campaign raised $281,470, compared to Rebman-Lopez’s $115,323, according to state elections records.

Rebman-Lopez is a business owner who’s president of PECO International Electric, a Miami-based company founded by her husband Jorge Lopez’s family that exports power equipment to the Caribbean and Central and South America.

The winner of the Republican primary will likely face Democrat Adam Gentle, a self-described anti-corruption attorney and “compassionate capitalist” from Key West, in November.

The George Washington University School of Law graduate spent much of his legal career representing low-income renters facing eviction, and he also took on pro bono cases focused on “protecting children, the elderly and the LGTBQ+ community,” according to his campaign website.

He was decisively ahead in both Monroe and Miami-Dade of his primary opponent, Daniel “Dan” Horton-Diaz, who is also an attorney.

In the Keys, Gentle had 3,953 votes compared to Horton-Diaz’s 2,889 votes. In Miami-Dade, Gentle was ahead with 1,383 votes to Horton-Diaz’s 1,358.

Horton-Diaz, a Cutler Bay resident, previously served as legislative aide for former Florida Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Florida state director for the voting rights organization All Voting is Local and was a congressional district chief of staff for former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

A runoff needed

Voters must settle a Key West City Commissioner race in the Nov. 8 general election.

In a four-person race for the District 4 spot, Kim Highsmith won 45.67% of the vote, short of the 50% vote needed to win outright.

Highsmith on Nov. 8 will face Lissette Cuervo Carey, who took nearly 30% of the 1,351 votes cast Tuesday by residents of the district, which covers part of New Town.

Also in the District 4 commissioner race, Steven James Nekhaila got 17.84% of the vote and Ryan Barwick took 6.51%

The seat became wide open after Commissioner Greg Davila said he wouldn’t seek a second term.

Keys school board

Sue Woltanski won a second term on the Monroe County School Board with 54% of the countywide vote.

She survived a challenge by Alexandria Suarez, an assistant state attorney and former teacher who was endorsed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the nonpartisan race. Suarez took 46%.

Woltanski, a retired pediatrician who lives in Tavernier, was a vocal advocate of masks in Keys schools since the pandemic first took hold in 2020. She was elected to the school board’s District 5 seat in 2018.

Suarez called Woltanski a “liberal San Francisco transplant,” and said she would protect “our children from woke political activism in Monroe County schools.”

Woltanski is from Fremont, California, an East Bay suburb.

Also on Tuesday, Key West attorney Darren Horan won the school board’s District 1 with 58% of the vote, beating Gabrielle Brown, who took 42%. The seat became open after the incumbent, Bobby Highsmith, decided not to seek another term.

Keys commissioner

In the only landslide win in the Keys on Tuesday, Monroe County Commissioner Holly Raschein won 79% of the vote to remain on the five-person board in the District 5 seat.

Raschein beat fellow Republican Jose Peixoto, who took nearly 21%.

In September, District 5 Commissioner Mike Forster died from COVID-19 complications.

DeSantis appointed Raschein, the Keys’ former state representative in the Legislature, to replace Forster, whose term was set to end in November 2024.