CL projects Beckner beating Blair
November 5, 2008 at 8:55 am by Wayne Garcia(Read all of our coverage last night at Election Central.)
With only seven precincts left to be counted, Kevin Beckner has a nearly 20,000 vote lead and appears to have won the Hillsborough County Commission seat now held by Brian Blair. One big caveat: Those “precincts” are mostly absentee and early vote totals, which mean tens of thousands of votes remain outstanding. The Hillsborough elections office stopped counting at 3:30 a.m. with 6,000 absentees and 86,000 early votes left to be tallied, according to the St. Petersburg Times and online elections returns.
TBO.com reported this morning:
First, the issue of uploading early votes must be addressed. As of early Wednesday, only half of the 26 early voting machines had been tabulated. The county received 146,332 early votes, but it is not known how many remain to be counted.
Next, officials must access votes from machines in the outstanding precincts, Temple Terrace Presbyterian Church, a combined precinct, and New Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Tampa. One machine in each precinct was causing problems, Dominguez said.
Then officials also still have to count 6,000 absentee votes received Tuesday which weren’t scheduled to be counted until today. [Canvassing Board chairman Judge James] Dominguez estimated that counting the votes from the precinct machines and the absentee ballots would take about four hours.
But based on Beckner’s performance in early voting and his large lead, we project him the winner in this seat. According to the elections office tablulations, 60,384 early ballots had been counted when the count was halted early this morning. That would leave about 86,000 left to count. To close the 20,000 vote gap in early returns, Blair would have to win 62 percent of the outstanding early ballots, where Beckner has won 68 percent of the early vote counted so far. That dramatic turnaround in early voting results seems extremely unlikely.
Here are the most current vote totals from the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections:
| Brian Blair (REP) |
 |
47.38% | 180,599 |
| Kevin Beckner (DEM) |
|
52.62% | 200,586 |
How did Beckner do it? Early voting and staying close in the absentees, which usually break big for Republicans. Beckner built his 20,000-vote lead among early voters, a group that appears to be only partially counted still this morning. Blair is beating Beckner in absentees by only 158 votes.
Choice Polling Absentee Early Vote Prov Unscan Total Percent
Brian Blair 113,48 47,981 19,129 0 0 180,599 47.38%
Kevin Beckner 111,508 47,823 41,255 0 0 200,586 52.62%
