The much maligned Hillsborough Democratic Party is coming off one of its best performances in years. They not elected Barack Obama by a bigger margin than in 2008, but they were also successful in winning one tight House race (Mark Danish in District 63), and nearly another (Gail Gottlieb narrowly lost out to Republican Russ Spano in HD 59).
But after Party Chair Chris Mitchell stepped down to work for the state party last month, the fact of the matter was that going into Monday night's Democratic Executive Committee meeting at the Children's Board offices in Ybor City, they had zero candidates applying to replace him to lead the party.
But the only declared candidate to run for vice chair, Michael van Hoek, was nominated during the meeting to be chairman. He then elected unanimously to lead the party into next year's elections. Moments later, Tim Heberlein, the head of the Hillsborough Young Democrats, was elected vice chair, defeating Gerald White.
This article appears in May 16-22, 2013.