Alex Sink running for Bill Young's old house seat

[Badger]

Jolly's lobbying past has dug up an odd tidbit of info

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Castor and Nelson I can get, seeing as how a lobbyist has to be bipartisan. He's gonna have a tough time explaining donating to Jesse Jackson Jr. though.

Smells like primary poison. The attack ads write themselves.

[Badger]

Absentee Votes:

David W. Jolly (REP)   59,950      
Alex Sink (DEM)   62,978      
Lucas Overby (LPF)   6,629      
WRITE-IN    262   

If I understood earlier posts, don't Republicans usually lose this district even if they have a couple points advantage in absentee balloting?

[Badger]

Absentee Votes:

David W. Jolly (REP)   59,950      
Alex Sink (DEM)   62,978      
Lucas Overby (LPF)   6,629      
WRITE-IN    262   

If I understood earlier posts, don't Republicans usually lose this district even if they have a couple points advantage in absentee balloting?

I think it is the other way around.

Sink lead is down to about 500 votes, with half the precincts reporting smthg

66K early votes have been cast. The split is 42R/39D/19I which is similar to the overall registration.

Smith says this is good news for Sink since Pubs usually have a sizeable early vote lead.

Yeah, those numbers look encouraging:

In 2012, 7% more Republicans than Democrats turned out - but Obama won the district.

Since then, the numbers have gotten worse for Jolly. Republicans lead Democrats in absentees only 42-40 now: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/republican-lead-in-absentee-ballots-too-slim-to-comfort-jolly/2166900

The GOP lead for absentees grew some in the final days after this was posted, but if Sink actually won the absentee vote.

Admittedly, the current actual results on the ground don't support this theory, but....

[Badger]

About 90% in with Jolly up by 2.5%. Looks good for Jolly.

[Badger]

Gerrymandering works, what a freaking surprise.

Yes, it may have been a small factor, but you lost because you nominated a horrible nominee.  You threw one away.  Should have had Rick Kriseman run instead of mayor.  You would have a house seat then.

No, you won because the legislature cut out black voters and used water continuity to pack them. You really think Jolly would have won if the whole of St. Pete was in the district?

I that why the precinct map has this broad strech reaching to the shore in N. St. Pete's not voting in this election, but separating two areas that do?

[Badger]

You can't blame Sink, this district is a rigged gerrymander, blame the Republican legislature for breaking the rules of the redistricting amendment.

Didn't Obama win this district?

[Badger]

In fairness to Sink, turnout benefits Dems and special elections in a swing district are rarely a good thing for them.

That said, she was certainly unimpressive here.

[Badger]

In fairness to Sink, turnout benefits Dems and special elections in a swing district are rarely a good thing for them.

That said, she was certainly unimpressive here.

That's why you have a campaign, to shape the turnout...

You make it sound like turnout is an easily malable lump of clay to be "shaped" as the candidate wishes. Special elections make that rather difficult.

[Badger]

In fairness to Sink, turnout benefits Dems and special elections in a swing district are rarely a good thing for them.

That said, she was certainly unimpressive here.

That's why you have a campaign, to shape the turnout...

You make it sound like turnout is an easily malable lump of clay to be "shaped" as the candidate wishes. Special elections make that rather difficult.

When you have a good ground game, you make the turnout what you want it to be. Aren't the Dems supposed to be the pros at targeting, well they dropped the ball on this one. In the end though, the blame falls on the candidate.

Srsly?

[Badger]

You can't force people to vote, so turnout isn't what you make it. A lot of people who vote in presidential elections simply aren't plugged into any other elections in off-years.

Strawman. People will vote if you give them the proper incentives...free rides, absentee pickup, etc

Do you really think Sink's campaign didn't use these tools?

[Badger]

If we are going to talk about the national implications of the race, it is important to note that Obama only won this district by 1.5 points in 2012. Sink lost by about 2 points. This implies that the national generic vote would be about even, which is where it was in 2012. How does this tell us anything new? If it tells us that the Democrats won't be retaking the house, then I would say that everyone already knew that. Yes, Democrats need to win this sort of seat to win the house but that is not going to happen in 2014. Whether or not the Democrats hold on to the Senate is the real question this election cycle and this race doesn't give us an answer to that question.

That assumes the candidate quality was about equal. If Sink were a superior candidate vis a vis Jolly, as I assumed, then one comes to a different conclusion. It is interesting Sink did so much better with the absentees than she did with the election day voters. That suggests the Dems were far superior on the ground than the Pubs were, which is another possible factor in the mix to consider. It is rather hard to believe that higher scale SES voters tend to vote on election day rather than before, when one's intuition is precisely the opposite, and I think in 2012 Obama did in fact do a bit better with the election day voters than the absentees. Another explanation is that Sink "sank" at the end of the race, and if that if most voters were election day voters, rather than absentees, than the election would have been more of a Jolly blow out.

I think this gets it about right. Sink was an overhyped candidate to be sure, but does anyone think Obama would've won this district with Tuesday's turnout level? Not that the difference will save many Dems in November, though.