Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/92622
A CLEAN SWEEP Sarasota County Commissioner Christine Robinson celebrates her election to the commission Tues- day night as Sarasota County Republican Party Chairman Joe Gruters joins her on the stage. Con- tributed photo REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES TAKE THE FLORIDA HOUSE RACES, THOUGH DEMOCRATS WILL HAVE A STRONGER PRESENCE IN TALLAHASSEE By Cooper Levey-Baker Associate Editor Republican incumbents swept each local state House race this Tuesday, Nov. 6, and will be heading back to Tallahassee to join what is now a slightly diminished GOP majority. State Rep. Jim Boyd defeated attorney Adam Tebrugge by a 56 percent to 44 percent count, while state Rep. Ray Pilon, who unseated Democratic state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald in 2010, took 53 percent of the vote in his contest against attorney Liz Alpert. Republican state Rep. Greg Steube, meanwhile, took almost three quarters of the vote in his race against the independent Bob McCann. All three will return to Tallahassee for the Legislature's spring session, when they will be part of a majority Republican coalition not quite as omnipotent as during the past two years. Redistricting improved the competi- tiveness of many state races, and the Repub- licans lost the two-thirds supermajority they had wielded since 2010's tea party-backed vic- tories. The change is slight, but it could force great- er compromise on controversial bills, which have grown in number over the past two years. Among them, the Legislature has passed bills to suppress voter turnout, gut longtime