DeSantis comes in third
Generally mirroring the statewide results, former President Donald Trump won 76.11% of the votes in the March 19 Republican Presidential Preference Primary in Sarasota County, Supervisor of Elections Ron Turner and his staff have reported.
Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley captured 18.18% of the Sarasota County votes, while Gov. Ron DeSantis collected 4.07%, the unofficial returns show.
DeSantis dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses in January, while Haley bowed out earlier this month.
Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
Across Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported, Trump won 81% of approximately 1.1 million votes counted, according to the Florida Division of Elections. Haley captured 13.9% of the votes, with DeSantis at the 3.7% mark, the Times said.
Only 41,691 of the county’s Republican voters eligible to participate in the primary took part in it, the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Office website said. The number of registered voters allowed to cast ballots in the primary was 150,770, the Supervisor of Elections Office reported. However, 223 of those participated in a local election for a Tri-Par Estates Park and Rec board seat, the data show.
Most of the support for Trump came by way of vote-by-mail ballots, the Supervisor of Elections Office also noted. That figure was 14,327. The tally of votes cast in person on Election Day was 12,925, with another 4,478 early votes.
Haley’s supporters cast a much higher percentage of vote-by-mail ballots, the data show. That figure was 6,027, which was more than five times higher than the 1,159 Election Day ballots cast. Haley received 394 early votes.
For DeSantis, the breakdown was 948 votes by mail, 588 in person on Election Day and 159 early votes.