Tuesday, Aug. 20 isn’t the big day. But it is a big day.
Voters all over Florida will head to the polls to cast a ballot in the primary, setting the field for the Nov. 5 general election. Incumbent Republicans like U.S. Sen. Rick Scott will have to fend off opponents from their own party before moving on to November. Others, like U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who didn’t draw primary challengers will soon know their general election opponents.
Some races down the ballot will be decided Tuesday. For example, in the Hillsborough County District 3 school board race, voters will decide between Myosha Powell, who was endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Jessica Vaughn, who’s been backed by the Florida Democratic Party.
A winner could be chosen in school board races with more than two candidates if a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote. If not, the top two finishers advance to the general election.
With so many results set to pour in, here are the major storylines to focus on.
In the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has benefited from support from her national party. When President Joe Biden came to Tampa to campaign, Mucarsel-Powell was the only Democrat in her race who spoke at the rally. Others were not offered time.
Scott has largely ignored the Democrats other than Mucarsel-Powell, training much of his fire on the former U.S. representative from South Florida. In multiple cities, Scott has paid for mobile billboards calling Mucarsel-Powell a “socialist” — a label the Democrat vehemently denies.
Mucarsel-Powell is running against former attorney Brian Rush, Navy veteran and technology executive Stanley Campbell and Army veteran Rod Joseph.
Scott faces two primary challengers, Keith Gross and John Columbus. Both Mucarsel-Powell and Scott are expected to cruise to victory.
Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign committee has reported about $14.4 million in fundraising, according to the Federal Election Commission. That’s more than 10 times what her three opponents’ committees have raised combined. Scott, one of the richest members of the U.S. Senate, has loaned his campaign more money than his opponents have raised put together.
“I know that I can defeat Rick Scott, and that’s what I’ve been focusing on, but we need to get through the primary first,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview this month. “I’m not taking anything for granted.”
Campbell appears to be Mucarsel-Powell’s closest competitor. In June, the labor group Florida AFL-CIO endorsed him, and he’s loaned his campaign $1 million.
In an interview, Campbell said it was clear the Democratic Party had picked Mucarsel-Powell as its preferred candidate early on.
“It’s hard enough fighting the battles of an election, but it’s much more difficult when you have to go against (Senate Democratic Leader) Chuck Schumer in your race.”
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Scott’s team, meanwhile, is projecting confidence. They claim that few voters know who Mucarsel-Powell is and that she could be in for an embarrassing showing.
“The fact that Stanley Campbell’s name comes first on the ballot is a real fear for her,” said Scott political adviser Chris Hartline.
For years, Florida’s Republican governor has made partisan control of local education policy one of his top priorities. In 2022, DeSantis endorsed 30 candidates, and 80% of his picks won.
This year, DeSantis is following that effort with a slate of 23 endorsements. In a July post to X, DeSantis wrote that his preferred candidates “have pledged to serve with a focus on student success, parental rights, and curriculum transparency.”
Five of his picks this cycle come in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. In Hillsborough, the board is mostly composed of registered Democrats; DeSantis is hoping to change that.
Three of DeSantis’ candidates have just one opponent, meaning their races will be decided Tuesday. There’s Hillsborough’s District 3 race between Powell and Vaughn. Incumbent Laura Hine will have to fend off a challenge from the DeSantis-backed Danielle Marolf in Pinellas’ District 1. And DeSantis’ pick Erika Picard is hoping to unseat Eileen Long in Pinellas’ District 4.
Edwin Benton, a professor of political science and public administration at USF, said Tuesday gives Democrats an opportunity to showcase how serious they are about contesting races up and down the ballot.
“It’s very important for the Democrats to show up, because in past elections, they have been unenthusiastic,” Benton said.
Every major election cycle, prognosticators, journalists and voters spend months poring over polling data hoping to glean insights into American politics. Who will win the presidency? How will voters decide on major consequential constitutional amendments about abortion and legal marijuana?
In theory, Florida’s primaries, held a dozen weeks before Election Day, offer a real-world look at how motivated people are to get to the polls. Surely an August election offers insight into how people will vote, right?
Not exactly, political experts say.
“I wouldn’t really look too closely at turnout numbers for August and draw any conclusions about what it might mean for November,” said Michael Binder, a professor at the University of North Florida who runs that institution’s public opinion research lab.
First, there’s the issue of no-party-affiliated voters. Although dedicated citizens who don’t belong to a party will vote in Tuesday’s primary, they won’t be able to choose Democratic or Republican candidates in high-profile races for Congress. Instead, they’ll be left to pick local school board members, judges and other municipal officials.
That means we will learn almost nothing about the millions of no-party-affiliated Florida voters who don’t show up Tuesday.
Many who are affiliated with a party will also skip Tuesday’s primary. Those who vote in primaries are typically the most dedicated political observers in the state, Binder said.
General elections in November are decided by everyone else.
• • •
2024 primary voter guide: Over 100 local candidates on the issues: Here’s who’s running for office and their stances on abortion, immigration, local schools and more.
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STARKE, Fla. — Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was one of three older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.
Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.
Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesman for the governor, said the execution was carried out without complications and that Sochor issued an apology in his final words, saying he was “deeply sorry” for his actions.
Another 74-year-old inmate just a week younger than Sochor at the time of execution was put to death late last month. And later this month, the state is preparing to execute an 80-year-old, the state’s first octogenarian scheduled to receive a lethal injection.
The execution plans highlight the aging death row population in the U.S. and the busy death chamber in Florida, which has now carried out 10 executions this year — more than every other state combined.
It’s unclear why Florida scheduled the executions of the three prisoners consecutively.
Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted that in Florida the governor has practically sole discretion when it comes to scheduling executions. In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.
DeSantis did not respond to an email prior to Tuesday’s lethal injection seeking comment about the executions.
According to court records, 18-year-old Patricia Gifford was celebrating the upcoming New Year with a friend at a Fort Lauderdale area bar when they met Sochor and his brother in the waning hours of 1981.
The four spent several hours talking, but after the friend became ill and went to sleep in her car, Gifford left with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast. But instead of going for food, Sochor stopped his truck in a secluded area and attacked Gifford when she refused to have sex with him, according to investigators.
Sochor was later arrested in Georgia in 1986 on unrelated charges and extradited to Florida. Sochor’s brother told police that Sochor was responsible for Gifford’s disappearance, and Sochor himself confessed on tape to choking Gifford and disposing of her body, which was never found. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping in 1987, and he was sentenced to death.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Sochor’s last request to intervene.
And last week, the state Supreme Court denied Sochor’s appeals. His attorneys had argued that the state violated his right to a fair trial by failing to disclose a 2022 letter sent to Sochor’s brother from a South Florida detective asking for information about the location of Gifford’s body. The attorneys also claimed that the execution drugs wouldn’t effectively keep Sochor sedated.
On June 25, Florida executed 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer for the killing of his wife Karen. Until Tuesday, Spencer was the oldest inmate executed in Florida.
According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the oldest inmates executed by the state before Spencer were both 72: Samuel Lee Smithers on Oct. 14, 2025, for the 1996 killings of two women and R. Charlie Gifford on Feb. 21, 1951, for the 1950 shooting of a state representative, Charles Schuh Jr.
Meanwhile, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is scheduled to be executed July 28 for the killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents.
He would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in modern U.S. history after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney during a wave of Southern mail bombs.
A total of 16 executions have been carried out this year in the U.S., with Florida, so far, carrying out more than all other states combined.
Florida carried out a record 19 executions in 2025. DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was eight executions set in 2014.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
Kangaroos, monkeys, giant lizards, snakes and a 2,000-pound white rhinoceros are among more than 140 animals that escaped from captivity in Florida since 2022, according to state wildlife records obtained by News4JAX sister station WKMG in Orlando.
The escaped animals, which include some exotic and non-native species that require a state license to possess, slipped away from enclosures located in homes, businesses, wildlife sanctuaries and accredited zoos.
One notable case includes a white rhinoceros at Wild Florida in Osceola County in 2022. The rhino was supposed to be part of a new exhibit at the park, but it escaped its enclosure and, in the end, was killed.
The USDA determined the park violated the federal Animal Welfare Act in that case.
Another case involved a kangaroo in Volusia County that escaped its enclosure after a bear damaged it in 2024. The kangaroo was eventually found and the owner was fined.
Several escapes have been reported at the Jacksonville Zoo & Botanical Gardens since 2022, but in each case, the critters were recaptured by zoo staff and no injuries were reported.
In one case at the zoo, during an education program on April 1, 2022, a cane toad kept in a small container was left on a wagon in a portable classroom while everyone went outside for the outdoor segment.
Video security footage later showed the cane toad hopping out of its container and then heading out a door that was left ajar. Staff set traps near the portables and searched for days before recapturing the cane toad on April 18, 2022.
Only certain species of captive animals must be reported to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission when they escape. The state agency believes those escapes are under-reported due to the owners’ apprehension and fear of enforcement action.
INTERACTIVE MAP: Tracking animal escapes around Central Florida
According to FWC records obtained and compiled by WKMG investigative reporter Mike DeForest, escaped animals in the Northeast Florida area since 2022 include:
Striped Skunk — High Springs (Alachua County), Feb. 2022; captured by neighbor and returned to owner
White-faced capuchins (3) — Gainesville (Alachua County), March 2022; two of the monkeys never left the property of Koreymonde Capuchin Rescue and were recaptured quickly. The third monkey was caught by a neighbor luring it into vehicle where it was contained.
Cane Toad — Jacksonville (Duval County), April 2022; a cane toad used in education programs at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens escaped from a small container that was placed in a wagon in the classroom when everyone went outside for the outdoor segment of the program; video security footage shows the cane toad hopping out of its container and then heading out a door that was left ajar; later recaptured by zoo staff
Wild Turkey — Jacksonville (Duval County), October 2022; two turkeys in the Wild Florida exhibit at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens escaped; one went back in immediately and the other jumped out and ran down the tracks toward the bald eagle exhibit. Staff netted the turkey behind the scenes between the bald eagle and whooping crane exhibit
Fox — Lake City (Columbia County), January 2023; remains loose; owner issued written warning
Raccoons (2) — Hilliard (Nassau County), March 2023; 2 disabled raccoons escaped and are presumed dead
Axis Deer — Robert’s Ranch BHP (Putnam County), April 2023; recaptured by owner, who received written warning
Capybara — (Duval County), March 2024; recaptured by owner
Chinese Alligator — St. Augustine (St. Johns County), April 2024; escaped at St. Augustine Alligator Farm; recaptured by staff
Fennec Fox — Yulee (Nassau County), Aug. 2024; recaptured by owner, who received written warning
Capuchins (2) — Gainesville (Alachua County), Oct. 2024; escaped from Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary; recaptured by staff
Warthog — Jacksonville (Duval County), Dec. 2024; escaped at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens; recaptured by staff
Red Fox — Jacksonville (Duval County), March 2025; fox escaped from owner, killed by car
Ring-tailed Lemur — Jacksonville (Duval County), April 2025; escaped from same owner as red fox above; recaptured by owner, who received a written warning
Blackbuck — Gainesville (Alachua County), April 2025; escaped and was killed on a road
Boa constrictor — Yulee (Nassau County), June 2025; escaped and was recaptured by unpermitted owner, who received written warning
Beaded lizard — Gainesville (Alachua County), June 2025; escaped and was recaptured by owner, who received written warning
Black throat monitor — Jacksonville (Duval County), July 2025; escaped unpermitted owner and remains on the loose; written warning issued/misdemeanor pending
Rhino Iguana — Gainesville (Alachua County), Aug. 2025; escaped and was recaptured by owner
Wattled Crane — Jacksonville (Duval County), Aug. 2025; escaped at Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens before being recaptured
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.
BOCA RATON, Fla. — There are only two facilities in the entire world that study leatherback turtle hatchlings, and South Florida is home to one of them.
Inside, there are pools upon pools upon pools, all filled with newborn sea turtles.
The team at the Florida Atlantic University Marine Science Lab in Boca Raton provides groundbreaking research in understanding how turtles live and survive in the ocean.
“We bring in different species of sea turtles, the loggerheads, the greens and the leatherbacks and we raise them usually anywhere from two to six months,” said lab coordinator Emila Turla.
Director Jeanette Wyneken has been studying these reptiles for 24 years.
“We need to know what characteristics the population of turtles have that may be advantageous for species recovery, they are all either threatened or endangered,” she said. “One of the things we never knew was that this species of turtle dives down pretty far, at least at this age, we know the big ones do but we didn’t know the little guys are going down.”
Experts say the mysterious leatherbacks spend 70% of their lives in deep water.
The research facility is using satellite tagging to answer questions about the turtles that have never been known, until now.
“One of our turtles went down to 330 feet on one breath, one little baby leatherback turtle,” said Turia. “And the turtles are typically going to about 230 feet deep.”
But it’s what is happening in the nests on the beach that has these scientists focusing on the vulnerable leatherbacks that have declined by 90%,
David Anderson works in tandem with the Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex on one very important study.
“My team and I survey all five miles of Boca Raton beaches for all the sea turtle nesting activity,” he said. “The sex ratio study, to determine how many hatchlings are male and how many hatchlings are female from that particular nest, because they are temperature dependent to be male or female.”
Meaning if its cool in the sandy nests, the leatherbacks will be male, and if those nests are hot then the turtles will be female.
Tje team’s research over decades shows the heat is producing way too many females and not nearly enough males.
“We know in general its hot chicks cool dudes, but the hot part up here, that’s easy, it’s too hot to make anything but girls,” said Wyneken. “If it gets too much hotter they’re just dead so that’s too hot to hatch.”
Climate change, a hotter planet, warming oceans, all of these symptoms are capable of wiping out the sensitive sea turtle population, but this turtle nesting season has seen a whopping 41 leatherback nests on Boca Raton beaches so far, which is double the annual average.
“Just because there’s a lot of nest numbers doesn’t mean everything’s great, because the hatchlings still have a tremendous struggle to survive to adulthood, which would take them 20-25 years to do so,” said Anderson.
Only one in one thousand hatchlings will even survive, and this summer season has seen record breaking heat.
Hatchlings also get confused by light pollution and piles of seaweed that trump the feverish work of tiny flippers.
After the turtles grow to the size of a human hand, they take a boat ride offshore to be released into the gulf stream.
Some will be equipped with satellite tags to continue the search for answers to help understand how to help in the sea turtle species survival.
🏠 News From Your Neighborhood
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/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/4DLXMJBS6JDU3N75Q6AVJCW4H4.jpeg?w=400&resize=400,240&ssl=1 "Rubio, Scott call fast-tracking of Florida state park golf course plan ‘ridiculous’")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/4DLXMJBS6JDU3N75Q6AVJCW4H4.jpeg?w=80&resize=80,80&ssl=1 "Rubio, Scott call fast-tracking of Florida state park golf course plan ‘ridiculous’")
