Three Votes: Duval and Champion Head to November in Hernando School Board District 5

Three votes. That is the entire distance between Kara Champion and Susan Duval after Tuesday's primary in the Hernando County School Board District 5 race, and because neither cleared 50 percent, both names go back on the ballot Nov. 3 in a runoff that decides who holds one of five seats setting policy for every public school in the county.

Champion, a 28-year-old newcomer, finished with 13,717 votes. Duval, who has held the District 5 seat since 2014, took 13,714. Amanda Cunningham-Rud, a second-grade teacher, finished third with 7,781 votes, or 22.1 percent, and is out of the race.

Candidate	Votes	Share
Kara Champion	13,717	38.96%
Susan Duval	13,714	38.95%
Amanda Cunningham-Rud	7,781	22.10%

The three-vote gap is close enough to sting and, practically speaking, changes nothing yet. Both top finishers advance regardless of which one is listed first, so the November contest is the one that counts. These are also unofficial numbers. The Supervisor of Elections office has final certification and the post-election audit scheduled for Aug. 26.

Two very different résumés

Duval, 79, started teaching in Hernando County schools in 1969 and spent 11 years as principal of Springstead High School before retiring and running for the board. She is a registered Democrat in a nonpartisan race. Local news reports put her self-funding at roughly $2,000.

Champion, 28, is the daughter of Hernando County Commissioner Steve Champion. Her family's business, American Gun & Pawn, is listed as her primary source of income. According to local news reports she outraised Duval by close to $30,000, drawing money from individual donors and from real estate companies that also backed the other conservative-aligned candidates on this year's ballot.

Worth remembering how these seats work: board members must live in the district they represent, but they are elected at large. Every registered voter in Hernando County votes in District 5, not just the people who live in it. Terms run four years and the job pays about $47,000 a year.

The 7,781 people who voted for Cunningham-Rud are now the block both campaigns will chase for the next ten weeks.

Pearce takes District 1 outright

The night's clearest result came in District 1, where veteran educator Dana Pearce beat incumbent Mark C. Johnson with 52.2 percent. Johnson, an outspoken opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and critical race theory, first joined the board in 2014, lost in 2018, and returned in 2022 after narrowly winning a runoff. His name appeared among candidates who signed a parental rights pledge posted by Moms for Liberty.

Pearce recently retired as principal of Springstead High School, where she served seven years, and spent 25 of her four decades in education in Hernando County. At a candidate forum earlier this summer she said she was not running on politics, headlines or special interests, and that with more local flexibility she would put money toward teacher recruitment and retention, career and technical education, and school safety.

In District 3, incumbent Shannon Rodriguez won re-election with 65.3 percent over Luciano Stefan Vignali. Rodriguez was backed by Moms for Liberty when she first won the seat in 2022 and drew statewide attention in 2023 after reporting a teacher to the Florida Department of Education over a Disney film featuring a gay character.

Turnout was up

The elections office reported 37,802 ballots cast countywide for a turnout of 27.77 percent, which it described as Hernando's largest primary turnout since 2020. Early voting set a county record before Election Day.

Between now and November, the board still has to govern. The district faces the same math as much of Florida: declining enrollment means less state money, and candidates across all three races spent the summer talking about how to pull families back into public schools and how to hold charter and private schools accountable for public dollars.

Key dates for the runoff: the last day to register is Oct. 5, vote-by-mail requests are due Oct. 22, early voting runs Oct. 22 through Oct. 31, and polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Nov. 3. Vote-by-mail requests from the primary cycle have expired, so anyone who wants a mail ballot in November has to ask again. Details are posted at hernandovotes.gov.

Follow along at the Hernando County Community Website and on Facebook, where we post results and meeting notices as they come in. Got a take on the District 5 runoff? Join the conversation in our Community Forum. You can also read more government and politics stories and more education coverage from around the county.