Laura Moss Tuesday overcame a strong challenge from Vero Beach City Council member Tracey Zudans to win virtual re-election to the Indian River County Commission in the most contentious of the three races for Republican nominations up for grabs on the five-member body that runs the county.
Moss represents District 5, which basically encompasses the barrier island and zip code 32962, on the commission.
By winning the Republican nomination for the District 5 seat, Moss, herself a former Vero Beach City Council member and mayor, is assured of serving a second four-year term on the governing body. She has no Democratic challenger in the November general election and only has to face a write-in candidate who is not campaigning.
Moss, 71, got 55 percent of the vote to 45 percent for the 52-year-old Zudans.
In other County Commission election night results, Susan Adams, 46, whose family owns the Marsh Landing restaurant in Fellsmere, also won the GOP re-nomination that assures election in the heavily Republican county by beating back a spirited campaign by challenger Timonthy Borden.
Adams got 60 percent of the vote to 40 percent for Borden, and will now continue to represent District 1, which includes Fellsmere and a large swath of the rural northern area of the county.
Former firefighter Joe Earman also easily won re-election in District 3, which includes most of downtown Vero Beach, winning out over two challengers. Earman got 54 percent of the vote to about 23 percent each for Stephen Hume and David Shaw. Earman said on election night that he looks forward to working on “new projects to clean up the Indian River Lagoon.”
The other two county commissioners, former sheriff Deryl Loar who represents District 4 in Southwest Vero, and Joe Flescher who represents District 2, were not up for re-election this year.
In the other closed Republican primary race, Carole Jean Jordan once again won the GOP nomination for the post of County Tax Collector, in a race that was a rematch from four years ago against her former chief of staff, Brenda Bradley, by a whopping 71 percent of the vote to 29 percent.
Laura Moss had voted early Tuesday, attended a regular Board of County Commissioners meeting in the morning and then spent some time with her supporters and voters at her polling station, the Christ-by-the-Sea United Methodist church on State Road A1A, before retiring to her County Commission office after the polls closed to watch the returns come in.
She was relieved to have beaten back the challenge by Zudans, who had the support of the statewide right wing of the Republican party.
“I am so proud of our community that rejected division and rejected the political malfeasance by Tallahassee in the form of a write-in candidate,” Moss said after the results became known. “We voted for a sense of community and unity. I look forward to continue to serve this wonderful county and I am going to serve the entire county, not just the people who voted for me.”
Zudans watched the returns from her home and said that she had expected a close race. She said she will continue to “give back to the community in some other way.” She said she had a message for Moss, who had beaten her: “I hope she proves herself to be a true leader and gets things done.”
Moss had said before the election that win or lose, she was planning to file complaints against the tactics employed against her with the State Ethics Commission and the Division of Elections over the last-minute entry into the race by the unknown 25-year-old write-in candidate, Keith Ridings, who will run no campaign and is not actually urging anyone to vote for him in the November election.
“I should have done it already,” Moss said, “except that I’ve been kind of busy these days running my campaign.”
Ridings has admitted that he entered the race as a write-in for the sole reason of closing the Republican primary to voters not registered as Republicans. Without the presence of a write-in candidate for the general election in November, the Republican primary would have been “open,” meaning that registered Independents and Democrats would have been able to vote, too.
Local observers have no doubt that Moss, although she has also long been involved in local Republican politics and still serves as first vice-president of the Republican Women of Indian River, would have drawn more Independent and Democratic votes. Moss has for years been attending every possible social event, and had her picture taken, shaken more hands, kissed more babies and petted more dogs and cats than any other local politician.
Closing the primary to Republicans only was tantamount to an attempt to kneecap her campaign, Moss said.
Although Moss stopped short of directly accusing her opponent Zudans of putting Ridings up to entering the race as a non-campaigning write-in, she said any possible link between Ridings and the Zudans campaign should be investigated by the appropriate state authorities.
“It seems like a cabal,” Moss said. “These people are attempting to control everything in the whole county. It looks like they were involved in dirty tricks in the campaign for sheriff as well. It’s gotten so ugly. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
From their platforms and their campaigns, it was obvious that Moss represents the more traditional centrist Republicans, while Zudans has aligned herself with the ultra-right wing of the party.
Moss stressed “managing growth” as her priority for the next four years in the county, and proudly highlighted her achievement as mayor of Vero Beach when the city finally sold its electric utility to FPL, resulting in lower electric bills for area consumers.
Zudans had touted her credentials as a “fiscal conservative” who is for “limited government” and against “excessive government control of our lives,” key phrases often used by the MAGA wing of the party. She also derided some county government spending as “taxpayer-funded philanthropy.”
Zudans’ husband, Val Zudans, a local ophthalmologist, previously served on the Vero Beach City Council, including a controversial stint as Mayor when he waded into the national culture wars by trying to pick a public fight with the ultra-liberal city of San Francisco.
Tracey Zudans raised and spent considerably more money during the campaign. According to the last financial reports available from about two weeks before the primary election, Zudans had raised about $81,000 while Moss trailed far behind with only $21,000 raised.
Moss relied mostly on her personal brand of politics reaching out to voters individually wherever she could find them.
Moss had served the Vero Beach area in many volunteer capacities before her election to the Vero Beach City Council and then ran for the County Commission when longtime beachside Commissioner Bob Solari retired.
Zudans previously had won election to the Indian River County hospital board before stepping up to the Vero Beach City Council, following in the footsteps of her husband.
Staff Writer Jon Pine contributed to this report