By BOB KECSKEMETY
It appears the political pundits could have announced the final election results prior to Tuesday’s voting because all the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into their correct (or incorrect, depending on your point of view) place as predicted — like it or not.

Unfortunately, recent equal rights gained in Florida by the LGBT community now are less certain — especially the newly-gained right to adopt children. Both current Governor Charlie Crist and current Attorney General Bill McCollum have refused to challenge the court ruling permitting gay adoption in Florida.The same can’t be said for newly-elected Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) who said she would challenge the court decision and take that right away. Bondi ran against Dan Gelber (D) and won with 55% of the vote.

Democrat Alex Sink barely lost her bid to become Florida’s Governor to Republican Rick Scott by less than 2%. Scott too had said he would challenge gays’ right to adopt. Not surprising, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were the last to finish counting their votes. Statewide, it was no surprise that Republican Marco Rubio won the U.S. Senate race with 49% of the vote with  Governor Charlie Crist (I) coming in second with 30% and Representative Kendrick Meek (D) picking up the leftovers. These final results were representative of most of the state, however, in South Florida, the final results were an almost 3-way even split with Crist slightly ahead.

Nationwide, after four years in the minority, Republicans have regained control of the U.S. House of Representative. Incomplete results show that Republicans gained 60 seats in the House and now have a 53 seat majority.

In Florida, the most surprising House win was in District 22 where Tea Party-backed Alan West (R) won over incumbent Ron Klein (D) with 54% of the vote. Most of the rest of the state with a large LGBT communities was as pretty much expected. In District 18, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) was returned to her seat with 69% of the vote. Despite her party affiliation, Ros-Lehtinen has been a supporter of gay rights and was endorsed, once again, by the SAVE-Dade PAC. LGBT-endorsed Ted Deutch (D) won with 63%, and District 20’s Debby Wasserman Schultz won with 60% and Alcee Hastings (D) won, in what seemed like an almost non-contested race with 79%. In what was a particularly nasty race, David Rivera (R) won over Joe Garcia with 52% in District 25.

Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBT rights organization, endorsed four candidates in the state’s forty Senatorial races. Kelly Skidmore (District 25-D) lost to Ellyn Bogdanoff with 38%, Kevin Rader (District 27-D) lost with 46% and Les Gerson (District 38-D) lost with 32%. However, in District 35, Gwen Margolis (D) won against Corey Poitier (R) with 78%.

Candidates for State Representative in key LGBT areas of Florida and endorsed by Equality Florida were trounced. In the Tampa Bay area, District 51’s Janet Long lost with 44% of the vote, Stacy Frank (District 57-D) lost with 44%, Russ Patterson (District 60-D) also lost with 44% and Keith Fitzgerald (District 69-D) barely lost with 49%. If there was some sunshine on the west coast, it was District 53 where Rick Kriseman (D) won with 58%.

Equality Florida backed State Representative candidates in southeast Florida fared somewhat better. Included were Mack Bernard (District 84-D) with 78%, Joseph Abruzzo (District 87-D) won with 53%, Jeff Clemens (District 89-D) won with 61%, Irving Slosberg (District 90-D) won with 63%, Jim Waldman (District 95-D) won with 61%, Ari Porth (District 96-D) won with 71%, Franklin Sands (District 98-D) won with 63%, Evan Jenne (District 100-D) garnered 67%, Luis Garcia (District 107-D) won with 51% and Ron Saunders (District 120-D) won with 55%.

Gwyndolen Clark-Reed, District 92, Democrat, covering much of Broward County ran unopposed.

In key County Commission races, Broward County’s first openly gay mayor, Ken Keechl (District 4) lost his reelection bid to the county commission with 45% but LGBT-backed Suzanne Gunzburger won reelection with 72% in District 6.

Both Hillsborough County Commission candidates backed by Equality Florida lost: John Dingfelder (District 1) with 46% and Linda Saul-Sena (District 5) with 43%.

Miami-Dade County Commission District 8 election is very close and may end up in a re-count. Equality Florida backed Eugene Flinn and his opponent Lynda Bell split the vote almost 50-50. Write in ballots, that are still to be counted, could make a difference in the final result.

Palm Beach County Commission candidates endorsed by Palm Beach County Human Rights Council were Sherry Lee (District 2) who lost, Jess Santamaria (District 6) who won and Priscilla Taylor (District 7) who also won.

Equality Florida-backed, Susan Latvala (R) won her bid for Pinellas County Commission District 4 with 56%. Key amendments to the Florida Constitution won allow for military personnel an additional tax credit on their property taxes and new redistricting rules for both state and national districts. It was a good day for the incumbents in Wilton Manors. Mayor Gary Resnick was returned to office with almost 66% of the vote. Also returning to city hall are commissioners Ted Galatis and Scott Newton. Former City Commissioner Julie Carson, who sat on the dais for a few months in 2009 replacing Resnick who became mayor. She was temporarily appointed to fill Resnick’s seat in the City Commission and lost that seat to Scott Newton in a special election.