- Eric Atria won the Alachua County judge race with 61% of the vote, defeating AuBroncee Martin, both former public defenders.
- Atria raised $73,000 for his campaign, more than double Martin's $30,000, with both candidates personally funding at least half their contributions.
Eric Atria will work from behind the judicial bench in Alachua County from now on after securing 61% of voter approval on Tuesday, ending the campaign between two public defenders.
Atria and AuBroncee Martin told Mainstreet that the skills that make a good public defender translate to making a good judge. Both campaigned behind their decades of public service and legal skills from trying thousands of cases.
Atria said his campaign created excitement around a county judge race that typically fails to break through the noise of the election season.
“I’ve never worked harder on anything in my life, and I had all these amazing people around me who worked so hard all summer,” Atria said. “So my biggest fear was not losing, but losing and then not proving that the amount of work we put in mattered.”
In interviews, Atria and Martin talked about the difficulties of selecting a judicial candidate and how the local county judiciary is the people’s court, not a place to change national discourse.
Martin has campaigned for the judicial position several times and has fallen short. He said he hoped voters would see the campaigns show how seriously he takes the service.
Atria said the judicial position is the next step after his life was altered in 2022 when he was attacked as a public defender.
“I think that I would want in the first weeks everybody to be like, ‘We made the right choice.’ Just the way that I treat people, the way that I make decisions,” Atria said.
Atria raised $73,000 for the campaign against Martin’s $30,000. Both candidates personally funded at least half of their total contributions.