{"id":438688,"date":"2026-10-26T20:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/438688\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T20:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:54:07","slug":"still-on-the-ballot-london-says-she-will-accept-council-seat-if-she-collects-enough-votes-key-biscayne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/438688\/","title":{"rendered":"Still on the ballot: London says she will accept Council seat if she collects enough votes | Key Biscayne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four weeks ago, well-known Key Biscayne resident Claire London said she was dropping out<\/a> of her first Village Council election to spend more time with her husband, Ed, and focus on his health and well-being after his second four-year term expired.<\/p>\n

The just returned home from a week in North Carolina, admiring the colorful bloom of the fall leaves and cooler temperatures.<\/p>\n

“I just spent a week taking care of him,” Claire told Islander News on Monday.<\/p>\n

“But, but after spending a week with Ed, I think I’m going back to running (for the Council seat), she added, in her humorous style. “He’s OK with it. Before (the election process started), he wanted me to run for anything.”<\/p>\n

What’s happened since then has been an unusual set of events.<\/p>\n

Only four other candidates qualified to run and after listening one or two of their debates, a social media push began to “Vote for Claire” as, at least, a token gesture to honor Ed for longtime volunteer service to the community.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Claire said, that even after she announced she would withdraw, “What happened is I didn’t go officially sign the paperwork.”<\/p>\n

Her name appeared on the official Miami-Dade County ballot<\/a> (listed first among the five candidates next to block 144), which was released shortly thereafter, and “People were calling me, telling me, ‘I wanted you to get in.’<\/p>\n

“So, out of respect to them (and their early votes), I have not officially resigned. That’s the truth.”<\/p>\n

Now, it’s back to five eligible candidates for three vacant seats, including her husband’s, and anything is possible in the political world. After all, candidates with suspended campaigns (yet not officially out) still have won in the past in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and even this year in the Michigan GOP primary.<\/p>\n

“I think it would be miraculous, because some — even my own friends — already didn’t vote for me, thinking I was (officially withdrawn),” Claire said. “But, I would do it (if she collected enough votes).”<\/p>\n

The other candidates are incumbents Oscar Sardinas and Fernando Vazquez, along with Luis de la Cruz and Silvia Tarafa.<\/p>\n

Claire said that, last week, just before Village Manager Steve Williamson announced his resignation on Friday, “They were saying I could still legally win. I had people still voting for me. People were calling me and, so, now I feel guilty (not running).”<\/p>\n

Other than a couple interviews with Islander News and a podcast with another media source, Claire has sat back, not attending candidate debates, yet not knowing her future could still be linked to a seat on the Village Council.<\/p>\n

“I do have signs and T-shirts that I had planned before. I don’t know where they are, but I’ll find them,” she said, with a touch of humor, but yet contemplating the opportunity to represent the nearly 15,000 people of Key Biscayne.<\/p>\n

“If I thought I could do it. … I mean, wow, Ed is 86, and now he is even talking about running again in two years. He loves it!<\/p>\n

Just in case, Claire said she’s already thought of what her future slogan would be to support Ed: “88 for 28.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four weeks ago, well-known Key Biscayne resident Claire London said she was dropping out of her first Village…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49686,25534,126,1582,123,125,124,171444,127,153281],"class_list":["post-438688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-claire-london","tag-ed-london","tag-key-biscayne","tag-key-biscayne-village-council","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-november-3-election","tag-village-council","tag-village-council-candidates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438688","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=438688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}