It s been a roller coaster, Mahoney told supporters after 11 p.
m. at Jupiter Beach Resort at they sipped champagne. I love this country.
And I love Florida, and I love the people in the 16th Congressional District. He called Negron a class act and thanked his wife, Terry, and daughter, Bailey.
Negron, a state lawmaker from Stuart, watched results from home and later joined supporters who were gathered at the Hutchinson Island Marriot Beach Resort and Hotel.
He s the next congressman, Negron said of Mahoney. He deserves the opportunity to serve. We came in, we gave the people a competitive race.
Mahoney won with a strong showing in places like Charlotte County, where about 25 percent of voters are registered Democratic, but nearly half the ballots cast were for Mahoney.
The Palm Beach Gardens businessman also won large margins in St. Lucie County, the largest of the district s eight counties, and in Palm Beach County.
In Martin County, Negron won by about 12 points.
The race for one of the state s largest and most rural districts turned from a snoozer into a bruiser five weeks ago, when former U.S.
Rep. Mark Foley suddenly resigned and Negron was picked as the GOP replacement candidate.
The change became one of most closely watched in the country as Mahoney and Negron proceeded to lock horns over property insurance, Social Security and immigrations issues.
National political parties descended into the eight-county district, which includes parts of Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and five other counties, combining to spend $2.3 million in a matter of weeks and airing competing television ads in the district for the first time in at least two decades.
The two candidates combined to spend even more, with Mahoney building a war chest of about $2 million during the past year - including $417,000 in loans to himself - and Negron collecting better than $700,000 in five weeks.
In addition to his condensed campaign, Negron, was in the awkward position of asking voters to support him by casting a ballot for Foley, who quit his office after being confronted with inappropriate e-mails he sent to teenage boys who were former congressional pages.
Election and political party officials say they don t recall any Floridian ever having been elected to federal office with someone else s name on the ballot.
Part of the reason for Negron s unique position was that prior to 2005, county elections supervisors were required to print new ballots if the candidates changed less than three weeks before Election Day. For changes after that, according to the old law, supervisors could print new ballots at their pleasure.
Because of election problems since 2000, the Republican-led state government, including Negron, voted in 2005 to make it nearly impossible to change the general election ballot after the primary election.
Nevertheless, Negron believed he could overcome the extraordinary challenges in a district that has been steadfast in its support of Republicans for decades.
The GOP has represented the area in Congress since at least 1973. Republican gubernatorial candidates consistently earned a higher percentage of votes in the district than elsewhere in the state.
But Negron s call for conservative change in Washington wasn t enough to overcome the peculiar ballot and Mahoney s message of independent change. The message was one Mahoney began crafting last year, when he attempted to tie Foley to corruption among GOP House leaders, the poor approval rating of President Bush and the struggles of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Iraq.
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