In Osceola, Soto ousts Ramirez; Choudhry wins tough primary
Kelvin Soto ousted incumbent Armando Ramirez, winning the Clerk of the Courts seat in Osceola County, while incumbent Peggy Choudhry held off Kissimmee Mayor Jose Alvarez in her bid for a second term on the Osceola County Commission.
Ramirez, who had a tumultuous tenure in the clerk’s office since he was first elected in 2013, finished third in the race with about 20% of votes. Soto received about 43% of the vote and former State Rep. John Cortes was second with about 23%. Because no Republican or write-in candidate qualified for the seat, Soto won it outright.
Choudhry, received a majority, 51%, of the vote for the District 1 seat on the county commission, which covers western Osceola including Celebration, the U.S. 192 tourism corridor and other tourist attractions. In Alvarez, she faced a well-funded incumbent with name recognition as mayor of Osceola’s largest city. She outraised him by about $10,000.
Former commissioner Michael Harford, who was defeated by Choudhry in 2016, finished a distant third with 9%. She has a favorable path to a second term. In November, Choudhry faces a write-in candidate in Janette Martinez, who Alvarez alleged ran to help Choudhry by shutting out
NPA and Republican voters, which Martinez denied. About 5,500 voters cast ballots in the race.
In District 5, covering eastern Osceola, St. Cloud and mostly rural land east to Brevard County and south to Indian River, Ricky Booth cruised to the GOP nomination. Booth, a cattle rancher and school board member, received about 72% of the vote, while Wayne Liebnitzky finished with 28%.
Booth faces the lone Democrat in the race, Tahitiana Chaffin, in November.
Supervisor of Elections Mary Jane Arrington defeated Jaime Matos to win re-election, with 69% of the vote, while Tax Collector Bruce Vickers was also re-elected with 68%.
Soto, the school board chairman, is taking over an office that an outside firm reported in May was involved in several inappropriate practices. The report was commissioned by Ramirez, 85, after several staffers wrote letters suggesting a “pervasive pattern of inappropriate activity.”
The report found Ramirez had hired friends and relatives to high-ranking roles and employees had abused work hours and time off.
Soto, an attorney and U.S. Navy veteran, has vowed to make more services available online and create a “state-of-the-art” system to access court documents, schedules and recordings of hearings, according to his campaign website.
The Osceola supervisor of elections office was reporting a 21.6% turnout on its website, but reached by phone, Arrington said she expected it to climb to between 23% and 25%, which would be the highest turnout for a primary in at least two decades.
“I’m really pleased at the turnout,” she said. “It shows the success of the mail-in ballots.”