The days of door-knocking and stump speeches are over for candidates across the state whose elections will be determined by Tuesday's primary race outcomes.

But in Okeechobee County, the races were called early without a single vote being cast for any of the five county seats and three city-wide seats up for grabs.

One of those early winners is Okeechobee County Commissioner Terry Burroughs.
When Burroughs was first elected to office in 2014, he beat two others for the seat. Four years later, he won again, besting a single challenger.

In fact, Burroughs successfully won all four attempts for the county commission seat — though the last two races were won with little to no effort because Burroughs ran unopposed in 2022 and once again this year.

In fact, not a single local race in the city of Okeechobee nor in the county will be decided by voters after polls close Tuesday evening. That’s because the wins were automatically given to the sole office-seekers for the five seats up for grabs in the county and the three seats up for grabs in the city of Okeechobee.

Politics can be dirty, especially in areas with big money gets poured into campaigns by special interest groups.

So, could that be the reason there was not a single contested race in Okeechobee County or city this election? It’s hard to say.

Burroughs says Okeechobee has been fortunate to have clean races.

"But usually the races in these small rural counties like we have ... people don't get ugly. They don't get real negative, and they usually stick to the facts because people like to hear facts, and they don't like to hear conjecture,” he said.

Perhaps it’s because it can be a very demanding job that entails much more than two public meetings a month. Elected office holder shear complaints daily and are expected to play referee, guiding residents on how to resolve issues. And there’s a great deal of civic engagement that comes with elected office.

So could that be why only grizzled incumbents filed to run for office?

Maybe, says Burroughs.

"They probably just don't want to hear all of the complaints and have to deal with the people on a day in and day out basis," he said. "It takes a different person to be a commissioner or a city councilman or a politician as a whole."

Burroughs said he spoke with people who were weighing whether to run for his seat and possibly be his successor

That was until they found out that winners must disclose a great deal about their personal finances.

“People do not like it. They don't want get into an office where they have to reveal all their financial worth. I think that has a huge effect on it," he said.

Jim Craig, the chairman of the Okeechobee County Republican Party says it is easy to understand why there were only incumbents and no interested new-comers this election season.

"I think that's a good thing. That means everybody's doing a very good job working together, and everybody's getting the job done," he said.

And Craig is quite happy that it turned out this way and he feels voters are too.

“I think voters are pretty satisfied with what's going on. If they're messing up, then I think somebody would want to step up," Craig said.

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