After the dust had settled late on Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 152,505 ballots had been cast. Only 29.63% of Duval County's registered voters had turned out in this year's first city election, according to the Supervisor of Election's Office. Like a self-selective survey, elections with low voter turnout do little to prove actual public opinion. However, representative survey or not, only the votes that are actually cast are counted - and the results from those votes surprised a lot of people.
Perhaps the biggest upset came in the mayoral election, where Democratic candidate Alvin Brown moved into the second seat behind Mike Hogan. Many expected a runoff election to be pitted between Hogan and moderate Republican Audrey Moran, who has done well in courting the support of many local progressive groups. With Brown's grassroots efforts in areas of core support, and a little last minute help from the Florida Democratic Party, his campaign was able to pull off an impressive turnout for a shot at the runoff.
The Brown camp definitely has their work cut out for them between now and May 17. Even if half of Moran's supporters crossed party lines and came his way, he would still have a tough time keeping up with Hogan's decisive lead. As of yet, it is still unclear who Moran, Mullaney and the other candidates will be endorsing.
If there are any clues as to how the Hogan-Brown showdown will finish, there is the Jacksonville Sheriff's race. Though it was not given much media attention, Democrat Ken Jefferson (the former JSO public affairs officer) challenged incumbent republican Sheriff John Rutherford. Rutherford won in a relative landslide with 58.89% to Jefferson's 37.52%. Outlier candidate Soren Brockdorf (NPA) received 3.37% of the vote. This was the only other city-wide race between a Republican and a Democrat.
Uncertainty of any predictions from these results remains high with the large margin of error that results from this low turnout. If turnout increases in the May 17 run-off elections there could be all kinds of unpredictable sway in how things will turnout. It would behoove a campaign to "get out the vote" with direct grassroots efforts to mobilize the electorate behind a candidate rather than reach them indirectly through social media, television, radio and debates. Certainly Brown's efforts for the general election have made that point.
In other race results...
Winners:
- Jim Overton (R) - Property Appraiser
- John Crescimbeni (D) - At-Large 2
- Bill Bishop (R) - District 2
- Richard Clark (R) - District 3
- Lori Boyer (R) - District 4
- John Gaffney (D) - District 7
- Ray Holt (R) - District 11
- Doyle Carter (R) - District 12
- William Gulliford (R) - District 13
In Runoffs:
- Michael Corrigan (R) vs. Dick Kravitz (R) - Tax Collector
- Kimberly Daniels (D) vs. David A. Taylor (R) - At-Large 1
- Greg Anderson (R) vs. Jim Robinson (R) - At-Large 4
- Donald Foy (NPA) vs. Robin Lumb (R) - At-Large 5
- Clay Yarborough (R) vs. Lindsey Brock (R) - District 1
- Jack Webb (R) vs. Matt Schellenberg (R) - District 6
- Jill Dame (R) vs. Jim Love (R) - District 14
It will be interesting to see whether or not Brown can generate excitement to win this. He has a lot of ground to make up, but as you note, there are questions as to if the other republican candidates will all endorse Hogan or if that endorsement would even matter. In such a low turnout, Brown could conceivably take it with a relatively low number of extra votes.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the posting.