![Andy Dance](https://i0.wp.com/flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/andy-dance.png?resize=1000%2C665&ssl=1)
Last Updated: 8:24 p.m.7:32
Andy Dance won his second term on the Flagler County Commission, trouncing Fernando Melendez in the only clear runaway victory of the evening as the Supervisor of Elections announced results of the primary.
David Alfin will no longer be the mayor of Palm Coast after November. That role will be filled either by Mike Norris or Cornelia Manfre.
With all votes counted, Lauren Ramirez won the District 5 School Board seat against Vincent Sullivan, posting a 20-point-margin victory, while Janie Ruddy beat Derek Barrs by a handful of votes in District 3. “She’s definitely put on a good campaign, and I’m proud of us for both keeping it clean,” Sullivan had said of Ramirez this afternoon. “There’s been no mudslinging. So for that, I thank her.”
Kim Carney easily beat Nick Klufas, the Palm Coast City Council member, by almost 10 points, and Bill Clark by more, while Pam Richardson beat Ed Danko by barely 40 votes, though it is likely Danko will request a recount, as the difference is below 1 percent.
Ruddy won on a shoestring budget against Barr’s heavily financed operation, overcoming Barr’s Republican advantage as well, while Barr could not overcome the sense that he was newly arrived and running against an educator of long standing locally. Ruddy was celebrating this evening at the Village Pub and Deli at European Village, a business owned by a teacher where she’d kicked off her campaign months ago. But she was celebrating with some measure: “I’m going to be a little cautious. I know there’s some provisional ballots and signature checks to compare against, which will happen on Aug. 23,” she said, her eyes on a margin of less than 300 votes. “In this race its going to be quite close and I’ll feel more secure come Friday.”
![Susan Morden, left, and Sue Stone, getting those extra votes this afternoon for the margin that won Janie Ruddy her victory. (© FlaglerLive)](https://i0.wp.com/flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/susan-morden.png?resize=650%2C488&ssl=1)
In Palm Coast, Norris was the leading vote-getter by a comfortable margin, taking 32 percent of the vote in a five-way race, to Cornelia Manfre’s 22 percent. Alfin received just 19 percent, with Peter Johnson and Alan Lowe almost tied at just under 14 percent each. That sets up a run-off between Manfre and Norris, ending Alfin’s tenure. Just as arrestingly: the Palm Coast City Council will have four new members when they are sworn in the first week of December, with Theresa Pontieri its lone holdover–if not survivor–and with just two years on the council.
The District 3 Palm Coast City Council race between Dana Stancel, Ray Stevens and Andrew Werner was very close between all three, but in the end Werner led the count with almost 35 percent, with Stevens in second, by two votes over Stancel, setting up a runoff in November. In the District 1 race, Ty Miller was the clear leader, but without the 50 percent margin necessary to eliminate the need for a runoff. He will face Jeff Seib in the November runoff, as Seib edged out Austrino by 449 votes.
In the race for state House, Sam Greco beat Darryl Boyer by well over 20 points even in Flagler, Boyer’s turf, and Tom Leek beating David Shoar and Gerry James: Leek was handily beating Shoar even in St. Johns County, Shoar’s turf.
Only two incumbents were running among the local county, school board or Palm Coast races or even the races for the state Legislature, where Sen. Travis Hutson and Rep. Paul Renner are term-limited. But it was not quite a clean-slate election. All five constitutional officers in Flagler County were re-elected without opposition, and several of the candidates have either held office before or run for local office before, some of them several times. Still, there will be two new members on the School Board, two new members on the County Commission, and at least two new members on the City Council.
Dance, a Republican, is the only incumbent who who free and clear. It is his sixth election victory in a row. He first ran for School Board in 2008 in a special election to fill the seat left vacant by the resignation of Jim Guines. He won by 16 points. He was unopposed when he ran two years later, he won by 20 points in 2014, was again unopposed in 2018, and won his first County Commission race in 2020 by 25 points.
The Dance-Melendez race is over. If the other two County Commission races are effectively over, that won’t become official until November, because today’s winners in those two races still face a write-in candidate each. Neither write-in was visible during the primary. Neither is expected to make any kind of showing ahead of he general. The write-ins were strategic ploys to close those two primaries to independent and Democrats in hopes that the harder-right Republicans who vote in primaries sway the result away from moderate choices.
If turnout had seemed a bit tepid during early voting, an Election Day surge of over 7,500 voters nearly matched the 7,740 who voted during the eight days of early voting. Combined with more than 12,000 casting mail-in ballots, turnout was nearing 30 percent–better than in 2016, and almost matching 2020. Turnout in the 2016 primary, the year that featured a six-way Republican primary for sheriff that Rick Staly won and the race for Supervisor of Elections that Kaiti Lenhart won, was 27.1 percent. Turnout in 2020 was 30.5 percent.
In this election, just over 16,000 registered Republicans cast a ballot, compared to barely 8,000 Democrats and a little over 3,000 independents.
Correction: An earlier update briefly had Derek Barrs and Ed Danko ahead of Janie Ruddy and Pam Richardson, respectively, when we misinterpreted results as final results.
Primary Election 2024 Results: Flagler County's Local Races and State Races
Flagler School Board, District 3 | ||
Derek Barrs | 12257 | 49.42 |
Janie Ruddy | 12545 | 50.58 |
Flagler School Board, District 5 | ||
Lauren Ramirez | 14717 | 60.65 |
Vincent Sullivan | 9550 | 39.35 |
City of Palm Coast Mayor | ||
David Alfin (incumbent) | 3708 | 18.33 |
Cornelia Manfre | 4795 | 23.70 |
Peter Johnson | 2712 | 13.41 |
Alan Lowe | 2666 | 13.18 |
Mike Norris | 6348 | 31.38 |
Palm Coast City Council, District 1 | ||
Kathy Austrino | 3694 | 19.19 |
Shara Brodsky | 2831 | 1470 |
Ty Miller | 8586 | 44.59 |
Jeffrey Seib | 4143 | 21.52 |
Palm Coast City Council, District 3 | ||
Dana Stancel | 6186 | 32.80 |
Ray Stevens | 6188 | 32.82 |
Andrew Werner | 6483 | 34.38 |
Flagler County Commission, District 1 | ||
Andy Dance (Incumbent) | 17233 | 70.27 |
Fernando Melendez | 7291 | 29.73 |
Flagler County Commission, District 3, Republican Primary | ||
Kim Carney | 6379 | 42.58 |
Bill Clark | 3653 | 34.38 |
Nick Klufas | 4949 | 33.04 |
Flagler County Commission, District 5, Republican Primary | ||
Ed Danko | 7546 | 49.87 |
Pam Richardson | 7586 | 50.13 |
US Senate, Republican Primary | ||
John Columbus | (864) | (5.48) |
Keith Gross | (1191) | (7.55) |
Rick Scott | (13723) | (86.98) |
US Senate, Democratic Primary | ||
Stanley Campbell | (1446) | (18.79) |
Rob Joseph | (304) | (3.95) |
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell | (5427) | (70.52) |
Brian Rush | (519) | (6.74) |
Congress, District 6, Republican Primary | ||
John Grow | (2329) | (15.15) |
Michael Waltz | (13040) | (84.85) |
Richard Thripp | ||
Republican State Senate Dist. 7 | ||
Gerry James | (2775) | (17.88) |
Tom Leek | (7773) | (50.09) |
David Shoar | (4971) | (32.03) |
Republican State Representative, Dist. 19 | ||
Darryl Boyer | (5706) | (37.78) |
Sam Greco | (9397) | (62.22) |
Republican State Committee | ||
Sharon Demers | 6629 | 47.76 |
Jearlyn Dennie | 1947 | 14.03 |
Regan Hansen | 5305 | 38.22 |
Republican Precinct Committee | ||
Darryl Boyer | 538 | 24.82 |
Ed Fuller | 249 | 11.49 |
Robert Jolley | 232 | 10.70 |
Gary Kunnas | 228 | 10.52 |
Alan Lowe | 354 | 16.33 |
Randy Stapleford | 297 | 13.70 |
Stephen Verrier | 270 | 12.45 |
The Sour Kraut says
Draining the swamp?
Backslapping Commission says
Well there is one thing that good old Alfin was right about during his 4 year
Mayoral seat, “LOWE IS UNELECTABLE”, will you please stop
running already Mr. Lowe you are in the way of the better candidates!
Nancy N. says
I hope Klufas understands how his party screwed him over with their fascist shenanigans. Maybe he’ll think twice about where his loyalties lie.