{"id":204376,"date":"2026-03-24T20:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/204376\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T20:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:03:09","slug":"hillsborough-residents-cast-their-vote-for-state-senate-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/204376\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough residents cast their vote for state Senate seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Vote-barrier-in-Hillsborough-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-255736 size-255736 wp-post-image\" alt=\"A white barrier stands in a grassy field that says &quot;We The People&quot; and &quot;Vote.&quot; Election\" large=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tElection. Photo by Meghan Bowman for WMNF News. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tListen:<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, voters in Hillsborough County cast their ballots in the special election to fill a state Senate seat made vacant by now-Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>People trickled into the South Tampa Fellowship Davis Islands Campus to cast their vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Starkman has lived in the area since 1970.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI try to make every election, special or not, since it\u2019s part of our citizenship duty to vote when we are given the opportunity,\u201d\u00a0 Starkman said.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re choosing between two candidates \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmnf.org\/josie-tomkow-brian-nathan-senate-district-14-special-election-vote-wmnf-news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Republican Josie Tomkow or Democrat Brian Nathan.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tomkow is a former Polk County House member who left to run for this spot. Nathan is a U.S Navy Veteran and union leader.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Senate District 14 covers much of Hillsborough County, including South Tampa, Carrollwood, and Westchase.<\/p>\n<p>Voter Kathy Rodgers says her top issue is flooding in South Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe roads. We\u2019ve got to get these roads under control. They need to be repaired, they need to be maintained, and the infrastructure is probably my priority.\u201d Rodgers told WMNF.<\/p>\n<p>Charla Tempone has lived in the area for 25 years.<\/p>\n<p>She cast her ballot at the South Tampa Fellowship Davis Islands Campus and says the voting process was extremely easy and also important.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I think it\u2019s our duty and our right and privilege, actually. And I think having a say, having a word, and then allowing it to take its course and knowing you did your part. And you can\u2019t complain if you didn\u2019t vote.\u201d Tempone said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Governor Ron DeSantis <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmnf.org\/aclu-of-florida-sues-desantis-for-lack-of-special-election-for-tampa-senator\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">faced a lawsuit from the ACLU of Florida<\/a> for his delay in calling the special election.<\/p>\n<p>Polls are open until 7 Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Election. Photo by Meghan Bowman for WMNF News. Listen: On Tuesday, voters in Hillsborough County cast their ballots&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[276,5187,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-204376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-jay-collins","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}