Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Palm Beach Post

In heavily Democratic Palm Beach County, Barack Obama did better than John Kerry four years ago, but his success didn’t help several Democratic state House candidates who hoped to catch an Obama wave and upset Republican incumbents.

With the significant caveat that Palm Beach County results aren’t 100 percent complete and there’s recent local precedent for discovering new votes and litigating the results, it appears that Obama got 61.4 percent in Palm Beach County, compared to Kerry’s 60.4 percent in 2004 and Al Gore’s 62.2 percent in 2000.

Endangered Republican state Rep. Carl Domino of Jupiter, barely reelected two years ago against a low-budget foe, appears to have hung onto his seat Tuesday against a well-financed challenge by Democrat Bryan Miller. Republican state Reps. Bill Snyder of Stuart, Adam Hasner of Delray Beach and Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale all won with bigger percentages than they had in 2006.

Domino squeaked to victory by 627 votes over Democrat Rick Ford in 2006, making him a prime target this year. But Domino appears to have won with 51.6 percent over Miller.

Hasner won with 60.4 percent Tuesday, compared to 55.1 percent in 2006. Bogdanoff ran 4 points better than her 54.8 percent total from 2006 and Snyder ran 4.3 percentage points ahead of his 2006 total.