Orange County Mayor's Race Heads to Runoff
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
By: Judith Smelser

August 25 -- Former Orange County Commissioner Teresa Jacobs came out on top last night in the hotly-contested race for County Mayor, but she's not done campaigning yet. She will have to face current Commissioner Bill Segal in a November runoff.

Click here to listen to the story.

Jacobs came in first place with 42% of the vote.  It wasn’t enough to win the election outright, but she was still ecstatic when she gave her victory speech.

“We’re halfway there.  Nah, we’re three-quarters of the way there,” she told supporters at the Sonesta Hotel in downtown Orlando. “We’ve overcome all the odds.  We’ve overcome three quarters of a million dollars … and we’ve overcome some dishonest campaigning by some of our opponents.”

The money reference is to the more than $700,000 raised by second-place finisher Bill Segal for his primary campaign. Jacobs raised just over $200,000.

Segal says the money will be helpful in the runoff, and he also says he expects a different crowd to turn out in November, including more Democrats who might be more receptive to some of his positions.

“I am more for smaller government and more a social liberal,” he told 90.7. “She has painted herself now as a very social conservative, and everybody that has observed government in the last ten years when she was there [knows] she is a big-government process-oriented person.”

County Commissioner Linda Stewart finished just four points behind Segal in the mayor’s race, with 19 percent of the vote.  Businessman Matthew Falconer had 15 percent support.