(This story will be updated to add new information.)
Polls close at 7 p.m. in Palm Beach County ahead of the race for the District 7 seat on the county commission.
This year the chair will have a new face. After an eight-year term, Mack Bernard, a Democrat, is term-limited. He will remain in politics. He will be the next senator for District 24, representing coastal Palm Beach County from North Palm Beach to Hypoluxo, as no one has filed to challenge him in the primary or general election.
State Senator Bobby Powell Jr. will take Bernard’s vacated spot. will face Republican Leonard Serratore and two write-in candidates, Boaz Fleurena and Javonta Jerome Taylor, in the Nov. 5 general election.
District 7 extends from Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach south and includes parts of Palm Beach, Lantana, Lake Worth Beach, Boynton Beach and Delray Beach.
➤ 2024 Florida General Election Results
Powell Jr., 43, a Democrat, is a Florida state senator and a project manager for a land planning and landscape architecture firm in West Palm Beach.
He says his top campaign priorities will focus on providing affordable housing, combating homelessness and mental illness, expanding health care, economic opportunity and early childhood education, addressing traffic, controlling growth and the preservation of the environment.
Since 2013, Powell has worked as a project manager for Urban Design Kilday Studios in West Palm Beach. He represented District 88 in the Florida House of Representatives and Districts 24 and 30 in the Florida Senate.
Serratore, 69, a Republican, is retired from airport management and the U.S. military.
Serratore has asked his supporters to support him so he can fight government corruption.
From 1985 to 2022, Serratore worked in airport management, including as supervisor of airport operations at Palm Beach International Airport from 2002 to 2022.
Serratore ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House District 20 in June 2022 and for U.S. House District 18 in November 2022.
Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and racing relations for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: 2024 Election Results: Palm Beach County Commission District 7
