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Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsElections 2018Incumbents Ahead and No Surprises as Primary Vote Counting Continues

Incumbents Ahead and No Surprises as Primary Vote Counting Continues

There were no surprises as the Boards of Elections continued vote counting for the Aug. 6 Democratic Party primary last week.

Incumbents continue to be the big winners, taking the delegate to Congress candidacy and 11 of 15 Senate candidate slots.

Incumbent Delegate Stacey Plaskett has increased her tally by 37 votes to 3,897, and Russell garnered a few more too, rising from 635 to 640, but remains far behind.

The race for Democratic Party candidate for At Large/St. John senator, although close, remained essentially unchanged too, with Brian Smith getting six more votes, for 1,211, and Stacie January another seven, for 1,085. Either would be a fresh face in the Legislature. Incumbent Sen. Almando “Rocky” Liburd is not running this year.

For the other Senate race positions, six of seven winners on St. Thomas and six of seven winners on St. Croix are all either incumbents or past senators. The counts have not changed appreciably.

Sens. Marvin Blyden, Myron Jackson, Janette Millin Young, Justin Harrigan Sr. and Jean Forde, all incumbents, are the top five winners for St. Thomas.

Kevin Rodriguez, a former personnel director for former Gov. Charles Turnbull, comes in sixth. He has not served in the Legislature before, although he ran in 2002. Former senator Patrick Simeon Sprauve remains in seventh, with an effectively unchanged lead over eighth place finisher Ignacio Llanos, and appears likely to round out the Democratic Party slate for Senate.

The territory’s two elections boards continue to count mail-in ballots and have until Aug. 17 to certify the final results.

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