Leventis, Schultz set for Sumter school board Area 8 runoff (updated with quotes)

It will be Phil Leventis against Keith Schultz in a runoff in two weeks after the two garnered the most votes in Tuesday’s special election for the Area 8 seat on Sumter School District’s Board of Trustees.

With four candidates in the race and no one receiving more than 50% plus one vote of the total votes, the runoff will be required on Tuesday, Feb. 25. Leventis won 43.72% of the vote -- which included early voting and absentee mail votes -- while Schultz took 19.4%.

A former school board member, Schultz edged political newcomer Tom Montgomery by two votes for second place. Montgomery finished third with 18.85% of the vote.

Foxy Rae Campbell placed fourth with 18.03% of the vote.

According to the Sumter County Voter Registration Office, there are 7,762 registered voters in Sumter School District’s Area 8, and 366 voted in the special election. That is a voter turnout rate of 4.72%.

A former state senator for 32 years from 1980 to 2012, Leventis took 160 of the 366 total votes. He would have needed 24 additional votes, or 184 total, to avoid a runoff.

The open seat on the nine-member school board is just a two-year term to serve the remaining two years of Sen. Jeff Zell’s term as the district’s Area 8 representative after he ran for and won the state Senate District 36 seat in the November 2024 general election.

School board seats are nonpartisan races in Sumter County.

Sumter County Voter Registration and Elections Director Pat Jefferson said results will be certified on Thursday at 10 a.m.

MORE FROM LEVENTIS AND SCHULTZ

In the November 2022 Sumter school board Area 8 race, Leventis also advanced to a runoff from a four-candidate race and said he expected to do well again in the special election. He added on Wednesday that his campaign is not over.

“It’s just back to work now because I still believe strongly in the success of the school district and continued improvements,” Leventis said. “I am already making contacts and plans to try to make it as public as possible that there is a runoff, and it does matter.”    

Schultz said he was “extremely pleased” to make the runoff -- even by the slimmest of margins over Montgomery -- and especially with such a low voter turnout.

He added that he wanted to thank his fellow candidates for running clean campaigns, and he was happy with that.

Like Leventis, Schultz said his work will continue.

“I am going to continue barnstorming, door knocking, politicking, try to greet everybody who I can greet and try to reach as many of the 7,800 registered voters that there are in Area 8 over the next two weeks and see where that goes,” he said. “That is my plan.”