Dem Valimont breaks 18-year GOP stronghold in Escambia vote

Republican Jimmy Patronis won Florida’s First Congressional race. Still, Democrat Gay Valimont became the first Democrat to get more Escambia County votes than her GOP opponent in a federal race since 2006.

In the 2006 general election, Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson narrowly beat Katherine Harris in Escambia County – 42,964 to 42,573. Statewide, Nelson would garner 60.3% of the vote in the U.S. Senate race.

Escambia County has had an unexpectedly high voter turnout, 33.45%. One precinct, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, ran out of ballots for about 10-15 minutes, according to Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender.

“We started the day at 1,800 an hour for the first few hours, which I thought was good” Bender said. “If I do 1,800 an hour for 12 hours, that’s more than 20,000 voters for the day and more than we had in the August primary.”

But the voter traffic steadily increased. “Then we had a midday rush where we, I don’t know exactly how many did, but at times we hit what was equivalent to 3,000 an hour. From one and two o’clock, it was just under 2,500 an hour, and it started to climb. And by four, we were at 3,500 an hour. And Between four and six, we were near 4,000 votes an hour.”

Ballot Shortage: When asked about St. James Missionary Baptist Church running out of ballots, Bender said, “We had already dropped off a hundred ballots at that location and more on the way. Votes may have to wait 10, maybe 15 minutes.And so other than that, nobody was without ballots.”

He added, “One precinct told me that the last two voters had to vote on the express vote.”

MACEDONIA HOAX?

“The other story that came out was more of an April Fool’s joke because the Valmont campaign said that I had relocated a precinct on election day,” Bender said, referring to Precinct 98 at the Macedonia Baptist Church. “I had not; actually, one of the members from the Valmont campaign lives in Precinct 98, and I’ve been talking to her about it for weeks. So she told me, she told the campaign. I also talked to Derek Scott who said the Democratic Party of Escambia was well aware that there was a move.”

Inweekly did receive a phone message after work hours yesterday: “Precinct 98 has a sign posted that the precinct voting place has been changed to another location approximately two miles away. People are showing up here expecting to vote, some walking, some driving. Fortunately the Gay Valimont campaign became aware of the situation. We have some volunteers here to help direct people to the new place. I’m told that the website for Robert Bender’s office does not show this location correctly.”

The caller continued, “Even as of today, I was told that announcement was made. I believe I was told about the change in January, but if a person goes on the website today to find out where they need to vote in precinct 98, it’ll show Macedonia Baptist Church, not true, two miles away from here. It’s crazy and outrageous to me.”

We checked escambiavotes.gov and find the list of precincts still had Macedonia Baptist Church as the location for precinct 98. However, the page had a disclaimer: ** The “All Precincts in Escambia County” button below does not display any temporary polling location changes. To find your temporary polling location, please enter your street number and address below and the application will display your polling location on the next page**

Bender said, “I did get an email last night from someone. It was at 6:40 p.m. They asked me to send a staff member to redirect people that they had had 10 voters come by throughout the day to the wrong location.”

The supervisor said the church had notified his office in January that it no longer wanted to be a polling place. “That was during the snowstorm. And so pretty much every release we did about the snowstorm had something about Precinct 98 moving, and then we included it on the sample ballots that we sent to every voter who had not requested a vote by mail request.”

Bender pointed out that Florida law required him to send notification of the temporary polling location change to every registered voter in the precinct. “That was 3,009 letters that went out. We had a sign at Macedonia that was put out the night before the election saying that it had been moved and put the address of the temporary location. We did election day tips the day before and had it on. I mean, we did it everywhere, so to say that we upped and moved it on the day of the election was disingenuous.”

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1 thought on “Valimont first Democrat to beat a GOP candidate in Escambia since 2006”

Lars says:

April 4, 2025 at 12:14 pm

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Valimont first Democrat to beat a GOP candidate in Escambia since 2006

MACEDONIA HOAX?

1 thought on “Valimont first Democrat to beat a GOP candidate in Escambia since 2006”

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