Several incumbents in Broward and Palm Beach counties will return to office without facing voters after being the only candidates to qualify in their respective races by the noon deadline Friday.
Three Broward County Commission incumbents — Mayor Mark Bogen in District 2, Vice Mayor Robert McKinzie in District 8 and Lamar Fisher in District 4, all Democrats — secured re-election without opposition.
Four county Judges also drew no challengers: Ellen Feld, Allison Gilman, Phoebee Francois and Michele Ricca.
In Palm Beach County, meanwhile, School Board District 3 incumbent Karen Brill was similarly returned to office without a contest.
County Judges Santo DiGangi, M. Katherine Mullinax and Reginald Corlew also ran unopposed.
Voters will weigh in on 13 other County Commission and School Board races across the two counties.
Of note, while County Commission contests in Broward and Palm Beach are partisan, School District races are technically nonpartisan, meaning all qualified candidates will appear on the Aug. 18 Primary.
A candidate must receive more than 50% of the vote in the Primary to win outright. If no candidate does, the top two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 3 General Election.
Broward County
The only contested Commission race in Broward is in District 6, where four Democrats are vying to succeed outgoing Commissioner Beam Furr.
Hollywood Commissioner Caryl Shuham, former Broward Director of Policy and Public Affairs Eugen Bold, former Dania Beach Mayor Archibald Ryan and maritime business owner Jeffrey Jones — who unsuccessfully challenged Furr in 2022 — all qualified for the race.
Five School Board contests will also be on the ballot.
In District 1, incumbent Maura McCarthy Bulman will face Carmen Gimenez, a past Hallandale Beach mayoral candidate who previously served on the Miami-Dade County Commission on Human Rights.
District 4 is open after incumbent Lori Alhadeff opted in January to not seek re-election. Running to replace her are Parkland resident and Broward College professor Sharry Kimmel, whom Alhadeff and several other Broward notables have endorsed, and school volunteer and advocate Nicole Morst of Coral Springs.
The District 6 School Board race features four candidates, including incumbent Adam Cervera, a lawyer who gained his seat through an April 2025 appointment by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
His qualified challengers are Jessie Bastos, a tech leader, longtime Davie resident and elected member of the Broward Soil and Water Conservation District; Roberto Fernandez, a U.S. Army veteran and history teacher who helped write Florida’s controversial Black history guidelines and is now advocating for the rules to be rewritten; and aftercare entrepreneur Lester Wilks.
The status of a fourth candidate, 20-year-old substitute teacher Makai Henry, is uncertain. Henry, whose donors include former School Board member and Cervera predecessor Brenda Fam and former Miami Beach Mayor Michael Góngora, was still listed as “active” more than an hour and a half after the noon qualifying deadline.
District 7 also has unresolved entries. Incumbent Nora Rupert and challengers Shelly Soffer and Cynthia Dominique, who chairs the school district’s Advisory Council, were still listed as “active” past the deadline.
For the at-large Seat 8, incumbent Allen Zeman drew one challenger, school district trainer Sonja Azim. Both qualified for the contest.
Palm Beach County
Voters in November will decide whether to keep DeSantis appointee and former state Rep. Mike Caruso in the job as Clerk and Comptroller or replace him with Boca Raton Council member Yvette Drucker.
Caruso is a Republican. Drucker is a Democrat.
For the County Commission’s District 2 seat, which incumbent Gregg Weiss is vacating to run for West Palm Beach Mayor, School Board member Erica Whitfield and Haverhill Town Council member Teresa Johnson, both Democrats, qualified for the contest.
In County Commission District 4, incumbent Vice Mayor Marci Woodward, a Republican, faces Navy combat veteran and aviation safety expert Curtis Calabrese, a Democrat who briefly ran for Congress in 2022.
District 6 is the county’s most high-profile Commission contest. Incumbent Commission Chair Sara Baxter, a Republican, left the race this week for a congressional bid before returning to it after President Donald Trump publicly urged her to stay in the seat.
She’ll face a Republican Primary challenge from Indian Trail Improvement District Supervisor Elizabeth Accomando, while former state Rep. Katherine Waldron and Democratic candidates Mohammad Akther and Mario Guzman compete for a slot in the General.
In the race to succeed Whitfield in School Board District 4, the qualified candidates are education and mental health professional Tiffany Bryant, former Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet, former Boynton Beach Commissioner Christina Romelus and private school administrator Daniel Zapata.
In School Board District 6, former Wellington Council member John McGovern, former school counselor and mental health therapist Widline Pierre, and longtime education professional Wanda Rosario-Schoenfeld are competing to succeed incumbent Marcia Andrews, who confirmed her retirement plans in April 2025.
There’s also a competitive County Court race between Assistant Public Defender Schnelle Tonge and former Assistant Public Defender Jacob Noble, who now works in private practice, to succeed outgoing Judge Debra Moses Stephens.
