Lake County polls closed in the midterm elections as Osceola County readers watched the first statewide numbers come in, including 5,475,004 early votes already counted by the Florida Division of Elections. The tally gave the clearest early read on who had already voted before local results were finished.
Of those early votes, 2,174,862 were Republican, 2,069,165 were Democrat, and 1,207,977 were no-party affiliation and other. Mail ballots added another layer: about 2,007,192 had been received, including 858,534 from Democrats, 700,209 from Republicans and 448,449 from NPA and other voters.
Sean Parks and Leslie Campione
Lake County Commission races have historically favored heavily backed conservative incumbents, but grassroots candidates had emerged to try to unseat Commissioners Sean Parks and Leslie Campione. That made the closing of the polls the start of the count, not the end of the contest.
A new commissioner was also set to be decided in Leesburg's newly expanded District 3, which now covered The Villages. Districts 1 and 2 were held by Mayor Allyson Berry and Commissioner Alan Reisman, keeping the local map in play as ballots were tabulated.
Florida Division of Elections
At 1 p.m. Nov. 3, the unreturned mail-in ballot count stood at 457,213. That left a large share of mailed ballots still outside the count while early and received mail totals already pointed to a race shaped by both in-person and absentee participation.
Tim Reid and Trevor Hunnicutt reported that Americans went to the polls in the midterm elections on Nov. 3, and said a major election day survey suggested voters were most unhappy with the economy. In Lake County, the numbers showed a split pattern: Democrats dominated mail-in voting, while Republicans led the early voting total.
The first local results would come after the polls closed, but the available counts already showed how close the participation race was among party groups and how much of the vote was still waiting to be added.
