Mayor Harvey Ward earned a fourth and final term on the Gainesville City Commission Tuesday night, with incumbent Commissioner Casey Willits and newcomer Nathan Crabbe also winning the nod of the voters in the Primary Election.
The three candidates will be sworn into the four-year terms in January, and Commissioner Bryan Eastman will join them after running unopposed for the District 4 seat.
After serving the term, Ward will be one of the longest-serving Gainesville commissioners ever. Commissioners used to have three-year terms until 2018, allowing for a new maximum of 16 years in office.
Ward eased to victory with nearly 80% of the vote against lone challenger Evan Moon. It was a stark contrast to the 2022 race that featured nine challengers and needed a runoff to decide.
“I’m excited. There’s a lot of good things to work on, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get busy,” Ward said.
A political newcomer, Moon’s campaign failed to pull voters away from the incumbent as sitting commissioners seem to have strong support from Gainesville voters, who backed the commission’s two Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) referendums with 71 and 75% of the votes.
Ward said those referendums show where the voters’ support lies. If the people were severely displeased with the sitting commissioners, he said someone would have challenged Eastman, more candidates would have filed for the mayoral race and Willits also would have faced more robust competition.
“I think people like the trajectory that we’re on,” Ward said. “We just need to finish that trajectory.”
The last incumbent to lose a re-election was Gigi Simmons in 2021, with sitting Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker slipping through by 118 votes.
Willits received 54% of the votes to avoid a runoff against two challengers, James Gardner and DeJeon Cain, who also campaigned against Willits in 2022.
At a Democratic Party watch party, Willits said southwest Gainesville isn’t where the majority of the city’s political muscle is, but he said he’s determined to continue taking his constituents’ voice to City Hall.
Commissioner Ed Book announced in early 2026 that he would not seek re-election, and three candidates filed to fill the District 2 vacancy.
Wyatt Zintiz and Nelida Jean-Baptiste Pellot qualified as political newcomers while Crabbe entered the campaign with a history in Gainesville politics from his time as opinion editor at The Gainesville Sun.
Crabbe won the open seat with 62% of the 7,593 votes cast. His campaign emphasized improving affordability while maintaining responsible environmental protections, and at the Democratic Party of Alachua County’s watch party, he said he was humbled by voters’ support.
“Talking with so many voters showed me that Gainesville is full of so many smart, passionate people, and I really had some great conversations,” Crabbe said. “The lesson that I learned from all this is we need to get these people more engaged in local government.”
For campaign financing, Crabbe also outdistanced his opponents, spending $10,700 compared to $2,300 and $1,700 for Pellot and Zintiz, respectively.
Ward raised $30,000 and spent $16,000 in his campaign, and Moon raised $3,700 and had used nearly all of it by Tuesday’s election. Willits spent $7,000 during the race, with Gardner and Cain trailing at $2,100 and $5,800, respectively.