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Politics

Kriseman ahead early over Gerdes

By ALISA ULFERTS
Published September 6, 2006

St. Petersburg City Councilman Rick Kriseman took an early lead in Tuesday's primary over Democratic rival Charles Gerdes in the race for state House District 53.

Kriseman still has to beat a Republican opponent in the November general election. But if the results of early and absentee voters are any indication, he appeared to have made it past the first round Tuesday by edging out Democrat Gerdes in Tuesday's primary.

Early Tuesday evening, Kriseman took a wait-and-see approach.

"I'm certainly hopeful," Kriseman said. "But I don't think it's fair to call anything at this point."

For Kriseman, Tuesday's apparent victory was more than a year in the making. Kriseman announced his candidacy to succeed outgoing state Rep. Charlie Justice in heavily Democratic House District 53 a year and a half ago. For the first year of the campaign he had little strong competition in sight, reeled in a series of endorsements and appeared to many Democrats to be skating toward victory.

That showed little sign of slowing down even after Gerdes entered the race six months ago.

With few precincts reporting, Gerdes, a commercial litigator, said he was still hopeful but wanted to see more results come in. He has said in the past he will support Kriseman if Krisman were to win.

"I want to see some precinct numbers and then get a better sense of what's going on," Gerdes said.

Gerdes and Kriseman ran a largely low-key primary race in which Kriseman, who'd been in the race more than a year, outspent Gerdes 5 to 1.

Kriseman will face Republican Thomas Piccolo in November.

[Last modified September 6, 2006, 01:48:39]