BROOKSVILLE - With less than half a percent difference in the top two vote totals, Hernando elections officials will conduct a mandatory recount today to confirm whether Janey Baldwin defeated James Adkins in Tuesday's District 5 Republican primary for County Commission.
In the other three primary contests, Hernando voters pared down a large pack of contenders and decisively chose Jeff Stabins in the District 1 Republican race, Mark Cattell in the District 3 Republican race and sitting Commissioner Diane Rowden in the District 3 Democratic contest.
Baldwin, making her third bid for a commission seat, received 2,608 votes to Adkins' 2,557, or 18.9 percent of the vote to 18.5, a margin so close that a recount of the scanned ballots is automatic. The 74-year-old Baldwin said she had complete faith in the recount process and that her victory margin would hold.
"I think the Hernando County voters are the smartest voters in the world," she said. "They got it right again."
Adkins, 55, a retired chief of the Brooksville Fire Department, ran on a platform of trimming government waste. When told he faced a recount, Adkins asked: "How much does that cost?"
Humor aside, Adkins too said that he trusted officials to hold a fair recount and that he would urge supporters to get behind Baldwin if she is declared the winner.
Former one-term Commissioner Chris Kingsley was unopposed in the District 5 Democratic primary and will face whoever remains standing after today's recount in the Nov. 2 general election. Richard A. Power is running as a write-in candidate.
As for the remaining contenders, Barbara "Bobbi" Mills took 17.5 percent of the vote, Jimmy Batten 16, Anna Liisa Covell 14.8 and Lara Bradburn 14.3 percent.
In the District 1 Republican primary, Stabins, who was District 44 state representative from 1992 to 1998, captured 27.1 percent of the vote. He lost his seat in the Legislature to David Russell in the wake of a 1996 arrest in Tallahassee for driving under the influence. Stabins pleaded no contest to reckless driving.
"This is very sweet," Stabins, 44, said Tuesday night. "I am just thrilled to be back and to be part of the political landscape again in the county I love. It's on to November."
Behind Stabins in the District 1 Republican primary was Donald Whiting, who enjoyed strong support from the county's construction industry. He took 21.6 percent of the vote. Third was Luke Frazier, 19, with 16.1 percent of the vote.
"I will definitely back Jeff up 100 percent," Frazier said, referring to Stabins. "We have become close friends in the last few months."
Stabins will face Democrat D.W. "Bill" Fagan in November. Fagan, an area businessman and former president of the Spring Hill Community Association, was unopposed in the primary.
The remaining candidates in the District 1 Republican primary - Rose Rocco, Anthony Palmieri and Richard McDermott - took 14.8, 10.7 and 9.7 percent of the vote, respectively.
In the District 3 Republican primary, Cattell, a 31-year-old lawyer, beat Art Dillman and Charles Gaskin, taking 39.6 percent of the vote. Dillman got 30.9 percent and Gaskin 29.5 percent.
Cattell was drastically outspent by his rivals. He credited his victory to shoe-leather campaigning; he said he had visited some 6,000 homes in the county in the last six months.
"You get out there and you talk to the people," Cattell said. "It's the old-fashioned grass roots approach."
Cattell faces County Commissioner Diane Rowden, who walloped her opponent Phillip Johnson in the Democratic primary, taking 64.3 percent of the vote to Johnson's 35.7. Steven Ashmore is running as a no-party candidate.
"It's humbling to get that percentage of the vote," said Rowden, 54. "I feel they really came out to support me, and I plan to continue to do the same for them."
Rowden said she had great respect for Cattell. She promised a contest based on mutual admiration and a discussion of the issues, as did Cattell.
Although 17 candidates, some longtime rivals, competed in the County Commission primaries, there were few public displays of bitterness or charges of foul play.
Only on the eve of the election did a minor scandal erupt when three youths were caught attempting to down a campaign balloon belonging to District 1 candidate Frazier. One of the culprits was named Rocco, and Frazier stepped forward to suggest that his opponent, Rose Rocco, was somehow involved. Rocco denied even knowing the young man, and authorities said there was no indication the two were related.
A candidate who vowed to govern based on biblical principles if elected, Frazier attributed the apprehension of the three by sheriff's deputies to divine intervention.
"It's God," he said, after informing a reporter of the incident, "the hand of God."
