The Republican primary for the Flagler County Commission’s District 3 seat was decided on Tuesday, with Kim Carney besting opponents Nick Klufas and Bill Clark. Carney will now go on to face write-in candidate Jose Fabiani, who has admitted he has few plans for campaigning and likely poses minimal threat to Carney’s chances in the general election. Clark lost his first attempt at elected office in Flagler County, while Klufas is out of a seat for the first time since he was elected to the Palm Coast City Council in 2016.
Carney’s victory on Tuesday was the first win since she concluded her tenure on the Flagler Beach City Commission in 2020. She ran for County Commission in 2020, falling just short of then-incumbent David Sullivan. She’d then go on to try for Flagler Beach Mayor in 2021, ultimately losing to Suzie Johnston. Now, she’s all but guaranteed to win a seat on the County Commission at last.
The defeat of Klufas, who won commandingly in his 2020 City Council re-election campaign, can likely be chalked up to increasing frustration with the nature and pace of development in Palm Coast under his and his colleagues’ tenure. Though Klufas has argued for sensible development and strategically-minded development, residents seemed to exercise those feelings indiscriminately on those candidates who presently sit on Palm Coast’s dais. Along with Klufas, incumbent Mayor David Alfin also lost his bid for re-election to his seat.
The circumstances surrounding the District 3 election were mired when Fabiani was walked through filing as a write-in candidate by Dennis McDonald, a multiple-time candidate and embattled political participator. McDonald said in an interview that he supported Fabiani’s entry with the knowledge that it would close off the primary to Republican voters only. Before Fabiani’s entry, all voters in Flagler County would be able to vote in the Carney/Clark/Klufas contest regardless of affiliation, but the presence of even one non-Republican candidate creates a closed primary for each party with multiple candidates. All three original candidates are Republicans. Fabiani himself said he had no intention of campaigning for his seat, leaving the sense his entry served only to exclude non-Republicans from the vote. McDonald said he supported Carney out of the three.
