Cuyahoga County Surburbs Elect New Mayors

Beachwood appears to have a new mayor.  Based on unofficial results, council president Martin Horwitz with 37.69 percent of the vote has defeated long-time incumbent Merle Gorden with 36.81 percent -- a difference of 37 votes.  The .88 percent difference is not enough to trigger an automatic recount but absentee ballots could still arrive at the Board of Elections.  School board president Mitchel Luxenburg earned 25.6 percent. 

Brook Park will also have a new executive at city hall.  Michael Gammella defeated incumbent Thomas Coyne Jr., by a 5 percent margin.  Coyne was a vocal supporter of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election and his son Donald Trump Jr., attended a fundraiser in Northeast Ohio last month for the Democrat turned Republican.  Gammella ran as a non-partisan candidate, as did Tom Colburn who earned 10 percent of the vote.  Democrat Jan Powers came in last with 9 percent.

In Solon, former assistant county prosecutor Edward Kraus defeated city councilman Doug Magill by nearly 10 percentage points to become the city’s new mayor.