Collier County voters cast ballots in Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary, Naples’ Mayor and City Council elections, and two Marco Island charter referendums. The results of the PPP and Marco charter questions are final. But the Naples Mayor and one Council race were so close that state law requires a recount, which will take place on Saturday.
In this post, I’ll share what we know so far. I’ll report the results of the Naples recounts and share further observations and a deeper analysis early next week.
Presidential Preference Primary
Collier voters overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in the closed Republican primary election. Overall, he received 76.2 percent of the votes cast. Nikki Haley was his closest competitor, with 18.1 percent of the votes.
Since Trump received enough votes in other states to clinch the nomination before Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary (PPP), these results do not affect the national outcome. Still, they are helpful because they reveal the electorate’s enthusiasm for Trump as a candidate.
Enthusiasm can be signaled by voter turnout for an election and the strength of support shown for the winner.
Voter Turnout
Statewide, just one in five eligible voters voted in the Republican PPP, the lowest turnout in a PPP in 20 years. This is also significantly lower than the 30 percent turnout in 2020 when Trump had token opposition.
Collier voters’ participation in this race was also well below the prior PPP. It was 27.7 percent this year compared to 38.6 percent in 2020.
Support for Trump
While Trump easily won the state with 82 percent of the votes, he received a quarter-million fewer votes than in 2020, when he had 94 percent.
In Collier County, support for Trump declined even more than it did statewide. Here, he received 76 percent of the votes, 6,400 fewer than in 2020, when he had 94 percent.
This chart compares the votes of Collier County voters to the state as a whole:
While 76 percent of Collier Republican voters voted for Trump overall, precinct results ranged from a high of 100 percent to a low of 56 percent. This chart shows the votes for Trump in the three precincts with the highest and lowest results:
See how your precinct voted in the Supervisor of Elections’ Results by Precinct Report and Collier County Precinct Map. (On the map, expand the sidebar on the left and check the box for Precinct Boundaries.)
Marco Island Referendums
City of Marco Island voters had two proposed charter amendments on the ballot, and voters rejected both. Voter participation in the referendums was 27.6 percent.
Just 4 percent of Collier voters live in Marco Island.
The first amendment would have nearly doubled the compensation of the City Council. It would have increased the salary of the Council chairman to $17,200 per year from the current $9,000 and the salary of the other Council members to $11,500 per year from the current $6,000. They have not had an increase since the City’s charter was written in 1997, according to FOX 4 News.
The City Council put the referendum on the ballot by a vote of 5-2, but 61 percent of Marco Island voters voted against it.
The second amendment would have changed the titles of the chief elected officers of the City Council from chairman and vice chairman to mayor and vice mayor.
Council voted 6-1 to put it on the ballot. But this measure also failed, with 54 percent of the votes against it.
Naples Mayor and City Council Election
Preliminary returns for the Naples Mayor race showed incumbent Teresa Heitmann and former Councilman Gary Price with 38 percent of the votes and incumbent Councilman Ted Blankenship with 24 percent.
In the City Council election, Bill “Coach” Kramer and former Councilor Linda Penniman won the first two seats, with roughly 20 percent of the votes each. But in the race for the third seat, Tony Perez-Benitoa and Berne Barton each received about 17 percent.
In the two races that are within less than half of one percent, Florida law requires a recount.
Friday, March 22
On Friday, March 22, after the vote-by-mail and provisional ballots are reviewed, the “first unofficial results” will be issued by the Collier County Canvassing Board.
The Canvassing Board is a group of local elected officials who oversee essential parts of the election. This ensures that critical decisions about the election are made by a group rather than by a single person.
Under Florida law, a County Canvassing Board comprises the Supervisor of Elections, a County Court Judge, and the Chair of the Board of County Commissioners. If a member of the Board cannot attend a meeting, one of the alternate members attends instead.
The Canvassing Board for this election consists of County Judge Janeice Martin, Everglades City Councilor Mike McComas, and Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier. Judge Robert Crown and Judge Christine Greider are alternates.
Then, the Canvassing Board will order a recount of the mayor and city council races.
Saturday, March 23
A machine recount will be conducted on Saturday, Mar. 23, at 11 AM, after which the Supervisor of Elections will issue the “second unofficial results.”
The ballots in the mayoral race will then be manually recounted at 4:15 PM Saturday, followed at 5 PM by a manual recount for the city council race. The Supervisor of Elections will issue updated results after the manual recounts.
However, the official final results won’t be reported until Mar. 29 at 5:05 PM. That’s because the PPP is a federal election, and overseas ballots received in the ten days after election day must be counted by law.
A link to election results will be posted at the top of the Supervisor of Elections home page, www.colliervotes.gov.
Learn more about the Naples City Council and this and prior elections in these Sparker’s Soapbox posts: