Lawson came away with almost 48-percent of the vote.
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“It has been an honor serving the people”, Brown said, adding her constituents learned to expect personalized attention.
During his campaign against Brown, he said that she should have resigned following her indictment and pointed out that he had been scandal-free during his political career. She said the main lesson of the primary was that Democrats must turn out in larger numbers for the general election “or we all will have sad faces”.
She’s served the Jacksonville area in Congress for over 20 years. Lawson will now face Republican Glo Smith in November.
Brown lost to former State Sen. Brown’s district for years had stretched from Jacksonville to Orlando and included various minority neighborhoods in between.
Brown carried Duval and Columbia counties, but Lawson was ahead in the nine other counties in the redrawn district.
Brown tried to get a federal court to throw out the revamped district, but after losing her legal battle she filed for re-election.
In July, she was indicted on 22 charges that involved mail and wire fraud, lying on income tax forms and concealing income on financial disclosure forms members of Congress have to complete.
Brown has pleaded not guilty to multiple fraud charges and other federal offenses stemming from an investigation into what prosecutors call a phony charity turned into a personal slush fund.
Prosecutors said only two scholarships that totaled $1,200 were given away.
Brown has denied all charges and is now scheduled for trial in November, though that date is likely to be pushed back.
Action News Jax asked Brown if she felt voters didn’t hear her side of the story on those indictments before heading to the polls.
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Even though Lawson didn’t defeat Brown in her home base of Duval County, he managed to make more inroads than Brown was able to make into Lawson’s base in Leon County, according to the voting results.
