In the Arena: Interesting Election Facts

Most party members, whether Democratic or Republican, tend to vote for the head of their ticket for President. There is a defection rate but usually it is in single digits.

In Leon County there were 78,207 Democrats who voted, 48,957 Republicans, 28,294 No Party Affiliation (NPA) and, 3,757 minor party voters for a total of 159,215 citizens casting ballots. Just the vote between the two major parties consisting of 127,164 voters. The split was 61.5% Democratic to 38.5% Republican.

The vote for the presidential candidates went Democrat 59.9% to Republican 38.3%. The NPAs often divide in pattern similar to how the major parties split. They did so again in Leon County.

In my daily analysis before the election, some folks wondered why I do not share more about the NPAs. The tendency to parallel the major party split is why.

Brian Welch, the incumbent County Commissioner in District Four, won re-election with 60.7% of the vote. The Republican Party made a last ditch effort to help Isaac Montilla. A look at the numbers indicate the Republican Party did too little, too late.

Absentee balloting favors Democrats, early voting shows a stronger Republican bias but is still predominantly Democratic, election day voting has an even stronger Republican tendency. We can first vote absentee which continues to election day, there is a fourteen day early voting period, followed by the one day precinct turnout.

Welch received 72.3% of the vote among the absentees, the early voting went his way with 58.7%, and in election day voting he got 50.1%. The Republican push started late and as a consequence could not overcome the early lead Welch earned. The overall vote went Welch’s way by 21.5 percentage points. The election day voting went his way by 0.2 of a single percentage point.

Countywide the Democratic candidates enjoyed an advantage of gathering votes in the high 50s. For President the split was 59.9% to 38.3%, for US Senate it was 57.2% to 40.9%, for Congress it was 58.2% to 41.8%, and for State Senate it was 56.6% to 43.4%. Among these four races the overall winners were all Republicans. The Republican Presidential nominee did the worse among the four in both raw numbers and in percentage of vote.

In the City Commission race Dot Inman-Johnson lost by 1,171 votes. She got 49.3% of the vote to 50.7% of the vote for Curtis Richardson. In the absentee voting Richardson only got 45.2% of the vote, in early voting Richardson received 51.2% of the vote, and in election day voting he earned 55.2% of the vote. It was the election day voting that pushed Richardson over the top.

The loss by Inman-Johnson was most likely caused by Jeremy Matlow’s unwillingness to go all in for the victory. Matlow’s One Tallahassee committee raised $361,128 to influence the City Commission race. However, he did not spend $77,830 of it by October 31^st and held it back. In short he did not go all in for Inman-Johnson but wanted to hold cash back for other uses yet unknown (could be for his own next election). His decision to withhold $78K meant Inman-Johnson lost by 1,171 votes.

Ryan Ray, the Chair of the Leon County Democratic Party who was supporting Inman-Johnson, held back $28K in party funds instead of spending them to get out the vote in parts of the City that voted for Inman-Johnson. His decision to withhold funds, along with Matlow keeping funds back, cost Matlow his only chance to get a third vote on the Commission.

Jon M. Ausman is the longest serving Chair of the Leon County Democratic Party in Leon County’s history (April 1980 to January 2000). He can be reached at 850-321-7799 or at ausman@embarqmail.com