Incumbent mayor, councilman reelected to Ocala City Council
Ocala-News
by Jeremiah Delgado
September 17, 2025
Two incumbents running for the Ocala City Council were overwhelmingly reelected on Tuesday night, with only around 11.6% (3,849) of all the city’s 33,301 registered voters showing up to cast their votes.
Mayor Ben Marciano and Councilman Jay Musleh were both reelected to their seats after the city’s special election wrapped up on Tuesday night.
According to the Marion County Supervisor of Elections’ website, Marciano garnered 3,204 votes, or approximately 84.03% of all the votes cast. His challenger, Arbor Feliciano, earned 609 votes (15.97%).
In the three-way race to determine the District 3 seat, Musleh earned 1,992 (52.73%) of the 3,778 votes cast for the seat. His challengers both drew over 20% of the vote, respectively: Mark Clark (1,006 votes) and TamBoura Jenkins (780 votes).
In total, approximately 3,849 individuals participated in Tuesday’s election. In total, the city of Ocala has 33,301 individuals who are registered to vote.
In both races, just over 1,600 people cast votes on election day, compared with over 2,100 votes cast by mail and through early voting.
The city held early voting at the Marion County Election Center from September 11 to September 13. During the 3-day early voting period, around 137 votes were cast.
On Tuesday evening, Marciano took to social media to share a brief statement about the victory.
"I’m excited to serve this great city another two years. Thank you so much for all the support!" reads the statement from Marciano, who first assumed the office in December 2023.
Musleh is the longest-tenured Ocala City Council member, having held his seat since 2012. Although he originally did not file to run for reelection, he threw his name back in the race after the all of the candidates for the regular election were disqualified for not paying their qualifying fees in accordance with state law.

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