Ken Welch, Robert Blackmon advance to November runoff in St. Pete mayoral race

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - In St. Petersburg, voters had their say Tuesday on who the next mayor might be. If one of the candidates came out with more than 50% of the vote in Tuesday's primary election, there would have been no need to campaign for the general election. 

However, frontrunner Ken Welch, who was endorsed by Mayor Rick Kriseman, did not quite make that mark, getting just under 40% of the vote as of Tuesday evening. 

Eight candidates were vying to replace outgoing Mayor Rick Kriseman, along with one write-in candidate. They included seasoned politicians, business owners and the youngest, a 20-year-old student from the University of South Florida.

A full list of city council candidates can be found here.

Only two of them – Robert Blackmon and Darden Rice – took substantial shares of the vote, with 28.25% and 16.59%, respectively.

Because none of the mayoral candidates received more than 50% of the vote, the top two, Welch and Blackmon, will have a runoff in November.

Midday Monday, more than 35,000 mail-in ballots had been cast. That's about 18% of all eligible voters. As of Tuesday night, 29.29% of registered voters cast ballots.

Three city council seats were also on ballots around the city: districts 1, 4, and 8. In each race, the two candidates who received the most votes will advance to the general election in November.

In District 1, those candidates will be Copley Gerdes and Bobbie Shay Lee, who each received about 34% of the votes.

In District 4, Lisset Hanewicz took a strong majority of the votes, with nearly 42%. The next candidate behind her was Tom Mullins, who received about 23%.

And in District 8, Richie Floyd made an impressive showing with nearly 52% of the vote. Jeff Danner was his closest rival, with about 27% of votes.

See updated vote totals on the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections website.