Good, bad news for incumbents: Three Tallahassee general election predictions | Jon Ausman

A few predictions ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

The contest in State Senate District 3 between Democratic incumbent Loranne Ausley and Republican challenger Corey Simon could well result in a Republican win.

We should see a turnout of 67% among the district’s 13 counties. As of Tuesday of this week 13% of the total votes to be tallied on election day have already been returned in the form of absentee ballots.

In seven of the counties – Dixie, Franklin, Gulf, Hamilton, Lafayette, Suwannee and Taylor – Republicans have already turned out a higher percentage of their registered voters than the Democrats have.

A higher percentage of the Democrats district-wide have so far voted compared to percentage of Republicans casting ballots. While this looks good at first for Ausley, many of those Democratic voters now have a preference for voting Republican despite being registered as Democrats. Rural Democrats started out by voting Republican in Federal and statewide races. Now they vote Republican in local elections as well.

Here in Leon County in the last gubernatorial election cycle in 2018, Democratic voters turned out in higher percentages for early voting while Republicans turned out in higher numbers at the precinct polls on Election Day by 3.1 percentage points.

Unless the Ausley campaign has heavily invested in a massive district-wide early voting program, they are in serious trouble. The Republican State Senate fund has invested millions of dollars in mailouts, digital ads, and television ads.  The Democratic State Senate fund cannot match even a third of that amount in cash though they did produce one mailout that resulted in negative press for Ausley.

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Senate District 3 has a three-percentage point tilt toward Democrats. Simon only has to move 1.6 percentage points to prevail. He likely is going to be successful in doing so.

As a side note, Republican voters and Republican leaners always come home to their party by Election Day. Ausley needs to go after non-primary voting Democratic voters to motivate them to turn out in the general election and to educate these voters as to why they should vote for her. That will require four to six voter contacts, the more personal the better, between her campaign and non-primary voting Democrats.

Maddox may have a winning coalition

In local races, challenger Josh Johnson is taking on incumbent Nick Maddox.  Both are registered Democratic voters. Maddox has a solid, and likely winning, coalition consisting of African-Americans, moderates, and business supporters, which should put him comfortably over the 50% mark.

Johnson has lost some of his previously enthused supporters. This is based on the inactivity of various local political committees that were active in the primary that have since gone silent.  Even if they became active now, they would be doing so after one in six of the total votes in Leon County have already been cast.

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While endorsements alone have little value, Maddox was endorsed by one of his opponents, the Capital Outlook, and Member of Congress Al Lawson.  This send signals to consistent voters in the general election that there is no reason to abandon Maddox.

A note of interest is that African-American turnout is higher than white turnout in the unincorporated area of Leon County.  The opposite is true in the city. Maddox has carefully worked both parts of the county, which should benefit him in November.

Why Dailey may have a slight edge

In the August 2022 mayoral primary just under 31% of the city voters cast ballots. In the general election the turnout should be around 65%.

Andrew Gillum, whether you like him or not, in November 2018 inspired younger voters to register and turn out. In that election 22,741 voters between the ages of 18 and 25 voted. In the primary of 2022, the turnout for that age cohort was 2,465. There is not a single other demographical group, when you compare the two elections, that shows such a 2018 multitude of voters when compared to the 2022 primary. The ratio is 9 to 1.

The top of the ticket gubernatorial contest has not, and will not, motivate such a turnout among younger voters that we saw in 2018.

The race for mayor is between two Democratic candidates, incumbent John Dailey and challenger Kristin Dozier. Both come from families long active in Leon County politics, both have appeal and supporters among moderate, progressive, and institutional Democrats.

The race has been marked by a high degree of negativity. The negative approach, while effective in convincing some how to vote, does not generally increase voter turnout and participation.

Some of the coalition that was enthused in taking on three incumbents in the primary (Dailey, Williams-Cox, Maddox) while protecting one (Jeremy Matlow) – after losing to Williams-Cox and winning with Matlow – have lost their forward momentum. The wildcard in this race may well be the Republican voters who will cast one in four ballots in November.

My sense is Dailey is going to prevail. If I am wrong, I will be eating neither my hat nor crow.

Now as a disclaimer I will tell the reader that in my yard are individual yard signs for John Dailey for Mayor, Nick Maddox for County Commissioner, Loranne Ausley for State Senate, and Al Lawson for Congress. After the primary I made a second donation to Dailey and Maddox. All four mentioned is this paragraph are good public servants who have been helpful in making our community one of the best in the country.

Jon M. Ausman is the longest serving member of the Democratic National Committee in Florida’s history (December 1992 to January 2017).  He can be reached at ausman@embarqmail.com or at 850-321-7799.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee general election predictions: Good, bad news for incumbents