ORLANDO, Fla. — On Election Night, all eyes will be on the presidential race — which may not have a winner right away — but in addition to that, there are scores of other races impacting Central Floridians you should know about.

And we’ll likely know a winner for these races on Election Night.

Here are 13 Central Florida races you should keep an eye on, ranging from congressional races to tax collector race.

What You Need To Know

U.S. House District 7

The U.S. House District 7, which covers Seminole County and part of Orange County, is a swing district that officially became Democratic when Stephanie Murphy was elected in 2016. Murphy has since made a name for herself in Congress as a moderate Democrat who tries to work with Republicans.

Now campaigning for her third term in office, Murphy is going up against Leo Valentín, a radiologist who offers a conservative alternative to Murphy.

Seminole County’s federal and state races are being closely watched, because the margin between registered Republican and Democratic voters is razor-thin, with President Donald Trump winning the county by only a few thousand votes in 2016.

Also running in the race is a no-party-affiliation candidate, Bill Garlington, a businessman who supports conservative ideology.

U.S. House District 15

Democrats have been trying to turn the usually red House District 15 blue for the past few election cycles. Rep. Ross Spano represented the district, which includes parts of Polk, Lake, and Hillsborough counties. However, Lakeland City Commissioner Scott Franklin beat Spano in the August primary, thanks to support from Trump allies such as Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Former TV news anchor Alan Cohn won the Democratic primary and has gotten support from top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama.

The district has an equal percentage of registered Democrats and Republicans at 35 percent. No-party-affiliated voters make up 28 percent of the electorate.

Florida Senate District 9

If Republicans do not retain majority control of the Florida House and Senate, it will be a shocking result on Election Night. Republicans have had control of both houses of the Florida Legislature since 1997.   There is a chance, however, for Democrats to chip away at that majority in seats like this one.

Longtime Florida Sen. David Simmons is leaving the seat. That means the district is an open race between three candidates: Republican businessman Jason Brodeur, Democrat Patricia Sigman and no-party-affiliate Jestine Iannotti of Winter Springs.

The race has been a particularly rancorous one, with third-party groups attacking Sigman, a labor attorney, with misleading ads, according to her campaign. Democrats, meanwhile, have accused Brodeur and his super PAC of paying money to a local blogger with ties to the Proud Boys, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as an extremist hate group.

The environment and unemployment are both issues that could sway voters in this race.

Brodeur was a state representative from 2010 to 2018 and voted for the current unemployment system that was overwhelmed in 2020 amid the pandemic.

Continued debate in the county over whether to support the rural boundary has played a major role in most local and state races this year. Brodeur says he supports the rural boundary, and a vote he cast in favor of a development by former Florida House colleague Chris Dorworth was made in error.

Sigman also supports the rural boundary.

The district includes Seminole County and part of western Volusia County.

Florida House District 29

Two Seminole County-based Florida House districts are worth watching closely on Election Night because of how competitive the county is.

The first state house district to watch is District 29. Incumbent Republican Rep. Scott Plakon is being challenged by Tracy Kagan, a criminal defense lawyer who narrowly lost to Plakon in 2018.

Plakon has been a staunchly conservative lawmaker in Tallahassee since 2009. But like Florida Senate District 9, Democrats see an opening in this district and have poured money into it. Kagan has even been able to run campaign TV ads, not something normally seen in the county.

A no-party-affiliation candidate, Juan Rodríguez, is also on the ballot.

Florida House District 30

Republican Bob Cortes is seeking to retake his Florida House seat from Democrat Joy Goff-Marcil, who defeated Cortes in 2018.

The district includes southern Seminole County and northern Orange County. Again, it’s another district that is considered a swing region because of the narrowing margin between Democratic and Republican voters.

Florida House District 31

Jennifer Sullivan, one of the youngest people to ever serve in the Florida House, is leaving to raise a family, which means House District 31, which includes parts of Orange and Lake counties, is an open race.

Crissy Stile is a bookstore owner and city commissioner in Mount Dora who says the state’s response to the coronavirus prompted her to run for the seat. The Democrat is going up against Republican Keith Truenow, a businessman who trumpets conservative values on his campaign website. This is his first foray into politics.

The district is another reliably conservative one, but given that Stile is well-known in the community, this could be a close race.

Florida House District 42

Another seat vacated by a term-limited state representative, state House District 42 rises to one of our districts to watch because one of the candidates was arrested earlier this year.

Osceola County Commissioner Fred Hawkins Jr. was arrested in July on charges of impersonating a law enforcement officer while trying to get into HOA elections for the Turnberry Reserve subdivision. Although some residents in that community say Hawkins was trying to help them deal with the HOA, Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Hawkins from his commission seat.

This week, Hawkins agreed to participate in pretrial diversion in order to have his “impersonating a law enforcement" charges dropped.

Hawkins is going up against Barbara Cady, a Democrat and a director for the Florida Rights of Nature Network. Cady has served on the Osceola County Planning and Zoning Commission. She challenged retiring Rep. Mike LaRosa in 2018 and lost.

The district covers parts of Osceola and Polk counties.

The Florida Amendments

There are six amendments to the Florida Constitution on the ballot this November. Each amendment must gather 60 percent of the vote in order to pass. They are:

1.      Citizenship Requirement to Vote in Florida Elections

2.      Raising Florida’s Minimum Wage

3.      All Voters Vote in Primary Elections for State Legislature, Governor, and Cabinet

4.      Voter Approval of Constitutional Amendments

5.      Limitation on Homestead Assessments

6.      Ad Valorem Tax Discount for Spouses of Certain Deceased Veterans Who Had Permanent, Combat-Related Disabilities

Two of the amendments could lead to systemic changes to how we vote for things in Florida. One amendment would force the state to raise the minimum wage to $15 over several years. Critics question whether the others even need to be in the Florida Constitution.

Head to the Making Sense of the Amendments section to learn more about each amendment, and what your vote could mean.

Brevard County School Surtax

Voters in Brevard County will decide whether to continue a half-penny surtax for public schools.

The sales tax, which was approved six years ago, has brought in about $200 million for the county’s schools. The school district says more than half of its campuses are more than 50 years old, and money continues to be needed for roof renewals, repairing plumbing and electrical systems, and upgrading campus security systems.

The sales surtax will expire at the end of the year.

Seminole County Tax Collector

The race for tax collector got more complicated earlier this year when incumbent Joel Greenberg was arrested on a slew of federal charges.

 Republican J.R. Kroll and Democrat Lynn Moira Dictor are running to replace Greenberg, who was removed from office. Kroll manages a real estate firm, while Dictor has worked for nonprofits and was on the Philips Phile radio show.

Whoever wins will have to work to restore public trust in the office, which has been roiled by controversy under Greenberg and his predecessor, Ray Valdes.

Volusia County Chair

The Volusia County chairperson may not run the day-to-day operations of the county (that’s the county manager), but they are considered the ceremonial, if not official, head of the county. They preside over council meetings, issue proclamations, execute resolutions, and represent the county in regional affairs.

Chairman Ed Kelley is stepping down, and Councilwoman Deb Denys and DeLeon Springs farmer and businessman Jeff Brower are running to replace him.

Growth could be a key determiner in the race. Brower has been hitting Denys and the county over the “smart growth” philosophy, which Brower says has been a failure for the county. He also wants to do more to protect the area’s water supply and look at excess spending.

Denys also supports doing more to protect water and also wants to focus on jobs and building infrastructure.

Sumter County Commission District 1

In Sumter County, commissioners must live in the district they represent; however, all voters in the county vote on all districts.

There were three districts up for election this year, but only one will be on the ballot: District 1, with Republican Gary Search and no-party-affiliation candidate Larry Green.

What happened to the races for district 3 and 5?

No Democrats ran in the three commissions. Had only Republicans been on the ballot, the races would have opened to all voters in the county in the August party primary, regardless of party affiliation. That’s called a universal primary.

However, districts 3 and 5 each had a write-in candidate. That ensured that only Republicans could vote in those primaries. Then, after Craig Estep and Oren Miller won the primaries, the write-in candidates withdrew.

This is called the write-in loophole, and it’s used in races all over Florida to ensure that races that would otherwise be universal primaries stay closed to other voters.

Estep and Miller are now elected outright and will not face challenges in November. However, both Estep and Miller, like Search, defeated the incumbent commissioners.

This may be seen as backlash to a huge property tax hike in Sumter County that went through last year.

Search, Estep, and Miller are all part of the “Fair Government for Sumter” movement, which aims to elect people to office that are not likely to support the developers of The Villages. They want to roll back that property tax hike and replace it with a higher impact fee instead. 

Brevard County Sheriff

The odds that Sheriff Wayne Ivey is going to lose re-election are slim. He’s a popular “law and order” sheriff in a reliably red county. However, we can’t help but notice that this race has gained some national attention.

Democrat Alton Edmond, a former public defender, is running against Ivey for the top law enforcement job. He’s running on a reform platform that includes body cameras for deputies, a ban on neck restraint techniques on suspects, and an end to the viral videos Ivey makes, which Edmond calls dehumanizing.

Edmond’s candidacy attracted support from Sen. Bernie Sanders earlier this month. The campaign also attracted the attention of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism outlet that focuses on criminal justice.