Trump dominates Republican preference primary
The results in the March 19 Republican Presidential Preference primary were clear in both Gulf and Franklin counties.
About nine out of 10 GOP voters prefer that Donald Trump be their nominee for president.
Turnout was pretty modest, 13 percent in Franklin and 19 percent in Gulf, and of those Republicans who cast ballots, about 87.3 percent, or 1,099 of them, voted for Trump in Gulf County.
In Franklin County, the percentage was a whisker greater, at 88 percent, as 819 cast ballots for the former president.
Republican Nikki Haley ran second, with 8.4 percent of the votes in Franklin, and 7.2 percent in Gulf.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ran third in both counties, picking up 2.7 percent in Franklin and 4.9 percent in Gulf.
Republicans Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy each picked up votes in Franklin, although their combined total was fewer than 10.
Ramaswamy didn’t get any votes in Gulf, but the other two men did, as did Ryan Binkley, who received a single vote.
In Franklin County, Supervisor of Elections Heather Riley had her vote tallies within 15 minutes after the polls closed, while it took Gulf County a little longer, since Supervisor of Elections John Hanlon decided it didn’t pay to spend the extra monies to modem in vote totals.
Only slightly more than half the voters cast ballots on Election Day in Franklin, while fewer than half in Gulf voted on March 19, with almost as many voting early and the rest by mail.
In Franklin County, the second most popular option was to vote by mail.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.