Kara Champion will be joining the Hernando County School Board, besting incumbent Susan Duval in a closely watched race for the District 5 seat.
Champion earned 54% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Supervisor of Elections Office.
Dana Lynn Pearce had defeated incumbent Mark Johnson in the August primary to win the District 1 seat outright, and incumbent Shannon Lean Rodriguez had defeated Luciano Stefan Vignali to keep the District 3 seat.
Kara Champion is the daughter of Hernando County Commissioner Steve Champion.
“I am committed to bringing traditional core values back to the Hernando County while keeping the focus on strong academics and student success,” she said on her Facebook page.
County Commission
Business owner Kathryn Birren won the District 2 seat in the August primary. Former County Commissioner Brian Hawkins resigned from the seat to run for state House.
Birren previously ran for County Commission and served as chairwoman of the Hernando Planning and Zoning Commission.
Former State Rep. Jeff Holcomb, also a former Hernando County Commissioner, won the District 4 seat with 57,919 votes (88.23%). His opponent, a write-in candidate named Donald Bigelow received 7,726 write-in votes (11.77%).
Brooksville City Council
In the race for Brooksville City Council Seat 1, Robert Don Watson (1,635 votes, 53.77%) defeated incumbent Betty Erhard (1,406 votes, 46.23%).
In the race for Seat 4, Noah Hodges (1,780 votes, 59.04%) defeated Jennifer McCoskrie (1,235 votes, 40.96%).
Mayor Christa Tanner had chosen not to run for re-election and Council Member Thomas Bronson did not draw an opponent.
Law enforcement surtax
The one-half cent surtax for law enforcement and public safety was defeated with 42,731 (55.25%) voting against it and 34,610 (44.75%) voting for it.
Post-election work
After the final precinct’s results came in, Supervisor of Elections Denise LaVancher detailed the work of office and staff for the next few days.
She said there were long lines at some polling places, with 211 people waiting to vote at 7 p.m. at Christian Church of the Wildwood.
According to the summary on the Supervisor of Elections website, voter turnout was 80,357 of 138,085 registered voters (58.19%) in Hernando County.
At 8:41 p.m. on Tuesday night, there were 354 ballots received uncounted, and 67 outstanding vote-by-mail cures.
By type, 20,933 voters voted by mail, 26,833 voters voted early, 32,930 voters came out on Election Day and there are 90 provisional ballots.
By party, 20,224 Democrats, 43,990 Republicans, 14,097 no party affiliated and 2,475 “others” cast ballots in Hernando County.
This story will be updated.