CLEARWATER, Fla. — The establishment won in the two Clearwater City Council races on the ballot on Tuesday.

The seat 5 race was a highly contentious affair between former Scientologist Aaron Smith-Levin and Lina Teixiera, with the Rev. Jonathan Wade staying out of the fray.

Teixiera ended up winning the race by more than eight percentage points over Smith-Levin, 44%-36%. Wade came in third with 20% of the vote.

Teixeira, who was endorsed by Mayor Frank Hibbard and outgoing Seat 5 Council member Hoyt Hamilton, said after she learned that she had won that she felt "vindicated."

"I’m just so grateful for the support, and I really just want to enjoy this moment," she told Spectrum Bay News 9 while a DJ blasted popular tunes at the Island Way Grill.

She said that she wants to improve customer service for Clearwater residents.

"I would really want to be very focused on providing services for our citizens in a very efficient and easy way because we are bogged down by a lot of processes that are archaic," she said.

Smith-Levin held a watch party event at the OCC Road House & Museum, a cavernous restaurant/bar and motorcycle museum off of 49th St. N. He felt confident before the polls closed, saying that he had knocked on more than 4,000 doors during the campaign.

But it wasn't meant to be for the 41-year-old, who made his opposition to the Church of Scientology front and center in his campaign. Smith-Levin was a Scientologist until he left the Church in 2014 after 29 years. He's become a leading critic of the organization, and said that he would hold them more accountable than previous Clearwater lawmakers have done in the past.

In Seat 4, incumbent David Allbritton easily won re-election over challengers Maranda Douglas and Gerry Lee. Allbritton took 56 percent of the vote. Douglas, a 31-year-old community activist who was trying to become the first Black member of the City Council in 29 years (along with Wade), came in second with 36 percent of the vote. Retired IT manager Gerry Lee finished third with eight percent.

Allbritton had campaigned on the premise that he hadn't been able to accomplish what he wanted to during his first term in office, since the last two years were marred by dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

"When Covid came in and hit the city really hard, then all these special projects I had in mind had to be waylaid," he said. "So now we're coming out of it, and we've got four more years."