Posted on 03/11/2014 6:24:25 AM PDT by GIdget2004
As of Sunday, more than 122,000 votes had been cast in the special election for Congressional District 13 in Pinellas County. The Republican advantage in votes cast to date has grown to more 4,623 votes. Presumably, a lot of ballots come in today and tomorrow.
We had been arguing that the Republican lead in mail-in votes cast was below where Republican nominee David Jolly needed it to be, but there's no question after the past five days he heads into election day with the momentum and with some wind at his back (Just as Obama had in 2012 when early voting was much stronger than in this election).
A giant question is turnout. Republicans working with Jolly expect that by the time polls close Tuesday around 170,000 people will have voted - about half as many as voted in the 2012 presidential election. If that's accurate, Jolly probably is on track to win.
Alex Sink allies are counting on a higher turnout, more like 200,000, to deliver her the seat even though Republican turnout is typically higher on election day. Democrats do appear to have a stronger GOTV operation - because Ashley Walker & Co. know Democrats need a lot more pushing to vote - so a big turnout could put Sink over the top. Two hundred thousand-plus voters does seem plausible, even for a special election, given the amount of attention on the race. In 2010, more than 216,000 voters turned out in that district.
We assume Sink will win more independent votes than Jolly and that she will win more Republicans than Jolly wins Democrats, though still not a great many.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
$15 million spent campaigning for this special election. Tampa Bay area has been bombarded with campaign ads for the election today, and the office is up for grabs again in November. Eeesh.
All you need is the precinct captains to win
“And why are ballots already being counted and posted before election day?”
They aren’t counting or reporting the votes - they are counting the number of mail ballots returned, and who returned them (Repubs, Dems, or Indeps). I agree, though, that even sharing that information is probably too much.
Jolly wins today..despite the Libertarian getting as much as 5% of the vote...AND the Dems spending millions. They won’t put 10 cents into this race in November...the House is gone..they’ll put it all into the Senate races, and anything left over will go to Abortion Barbie in Texas..
Boldly, a prediction is promised in the headline. In the body, he tells us to flip a coin.
Freakin' loser.
Romney should have slaughtered Obama in Florida....but....he pulled a “McCain” treating Obama like Obama was a good man...he wasn’t and isn’t...either!!! IMHO...Obama is more akin to Satan!!! Hoping Jolly sinks Sink this evening!!!
It’s the Tampa Trib. They so want Sink to win, while afraid she won’t, that they just can’t bring themselves to commit to a prediction.
If the Trib hasn’t changed since I was in FL, this is an indication they are pretty sure Sink isn’t going to win.
Oops. Disregard my opinion (just this one time of course).
I was thinking this was Tampabayonline, which if memory serves, is run by the Trib.
Thanks GIdget2004. If we presume this district is similar to the state, then we’re seeing a similar Republican advantage in the mail ballots in this special election as we saw in the state in 2012. The only conclusion to draw from this is that the election might be close. On the other hand, if Jolly is better among Democrats and independents (because of Obamacare), maybe it’s not close. But, we can’t presume this to be the case. Let’s just say the outcome is not predictable.
bump
bttt
4:53 p.m. - Election Day turnout is now at 8.8%; overall turnout is 36.3%.
http://www.saintpetersblog.com/live-blogging-election-day-in-cd-13
Considering Jolly is a tea party type candidate, I fully expect the GOPe to torpedo him so they can run their Rino candidate in Nov....
Disgraceful.
Any results yet?
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