Down-ballot losses for Democrats in Pinellas
Despite a well-coordinated Vote Local effort in Pinellas County by the local Democratic Party, Republicans nearly swept the down-ballot races even though Barack Obama carried the county.
So what happened? Did Vote Local fail?
Yes and no.
From a standpoint of getting local Democrats elected, yes, it failed. An underlying cause, however, is likely that the candidates, with a few exceptions, just weren’t that good or funded enough to be competitive. It also appears that there was not an overwhelming sentiment for change on the County Commission, despite the Jim Smith scandal last year. Where Vote Local had successes down ballot, in the apparent Hillsborough victory for Kevin Beckner and the Pinellas School Board seat captured by Nina Hayden, the candiates were energizing, articulate, good on camera and got the Democratic voters excited.
“Our job was not persuasion but just to convince people to vote the whole ballot,” said Larry Biddle, a Democratic consultant in St. Petersburg who worked on the Vote Local effort.
Vote Local did manage to increase voter participation down ballot in Pinellas, but only by a few percentage points in some of the races. Raw vote totals are more impressive: 14,000 more Pinellas voters cast ballots in the Supervisor of Elections race in 2008 than in 2004; 10,000 more voted in the County Commission District 3 race.
