{"id":23673,"date":"2025-10-28T13:23:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T13:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/23673\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T13:23:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T13:23:14","slug":"election-day-begins-for-tampas-district-5-special-runoff-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/23673\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Day begins for Tampa’s District 5 special runoff election"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Today is Election Day for Tampa\u2019s District 5 special runoff election and the last chance to vote for who will fill the District 5 city council seat left vacant following Gwen Henderson\u2019s unexpected death<\/a> back in June.<\/p>\n

On Election Day, Tuesday, Oct. 28, voters will choose between two finalists, Naya Young and Thomas Scott, who received the two most votes from the initial special election.<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in the initial September special election, 14 candidates<\/a> ran for the seat, but in the City of Tampa municipal elections, a candidate must receive more than 50 percent of the vote, or the race will proceed to a runoff election. In that race, Scott received 27% of the vote and Young received around 12%.<\/p>\n

Early voting for this election ran from Oct. 23 to Oct. 26, and Tampa Bay 28 spoke with both candidates about their platforms<\/a> before early voting started.<\/p>\n

Naya Young, a nonprofit executive, said her focus is on youth empowerment, economic development, transportation and housing.<\/p>\n

“Part of being a good leader is to be a good listener. So first and foremost, I am going to take the time to listen to constituents and everyone,” she said.<\/p>\n

Thomas Scott, a former county commissioner, said he is focusing on economic growth, road improvements, housing, flood solutions and civic engagement.<\/p>\n

Scott said, “One of the things I want to do is have more community meetings\u2026.And also encourage Tampa City Council…to come into the community.”<\/p>\n

Polling places are open today from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and you must vote at the polling place assigned to your precinct. Click here\u00a0<\/a>to look up your location.<\/p>\n

Vote-by-mail ballots must be at the election office by 7 p.m. tonight.<\/p>\n

For more information about voting, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Girl Scout saves father’s life with first aid training, receives Medal of Honor<\/p>\n

Maggie Lewandowski said it was the first aid training she received with the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida that allowed her to help her dad when he suffered a stroke.<\/p>\n

Girl Scout saves father’s life with first aid training, receives Medal of Honor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Today is Election Day for Tampa\u2019s District 5 special runoff election and the last chance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[205,276,609,6870,135,5910,3670,137,136,611,208],"class_list":["post-23673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-abc-action-news","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-naya-young","tag-special-election","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-28","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-thomas-scott","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23673","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=23673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}