Davis visits Martin County: Is the I-95 corridor the key to statewide success?
Democratic candidate for Governor Jim Davis visited heavily Republican Martin County yesterday, his first visit to the county during this campaign. Davis, who has been tagged by many in the party and political community as boring and too wonkish on policy tried to act folksy with the crowd in Stuart. Davis trails Republican Charlie Crist by a wide margin in theoretical head to head general election polls.
If any Democrat is going to win a statewide office in 2006, they will need to shave votes off the enormous Republican margins coming from counties along the I-95 corridor such as Martin, Indian River, Brevard and St John's. Each of these counties has over 100,000 residents (Brevard has over 500,000 residents and is an under appreciated vote gem in statewide politics) and the Democrats typically are not competitive at all in these places despite some strong Democratic activism in the areas. Three other I-95 counties, St Lucie, Volusia and Flagler are also very important and when Democrats have carried these three counties they have won statewide elections. This part of the state has been forgotten by Democratic strategist but worked relentlessly by the GOP, and the results have shown.
If any Democrat is going to win a statewide office in 2006, they will need to shave votes off the enormous Republican margins coming from counties along the I-95 corridor such as Martin, Indian River, Brevard and St John's. Each of these counties has over 100,000 residents (Brevard has over 500,000 residents and is an under appreciated vote gem in statewide politics) and the Democrats typically are not competitive at all in these places despite some strong Democratic activism in the areas. Three other I-95 counties, St Lucie, Volusia and Flagler are also very important and when Democrats have carried these three counties they have won statewide elections. This part of the state has been forgotten by Democratic strategist but worked relentlessly by the GOP, and the results have shown.
posted by Kartik at 11:09 AM
18 Comments:
When Democrats have a registration advantage statewide that is actually growing you are making the suggestion that the D's concentrate on areas with huge Republican registration advantages? Come again......?
Are you nuts? We have several coutnies in the the northern tier of the state where Democrats perform well when a candidate is put forth who can appeal to these people who are Democrats at heart. For example, Bill McBrdige carried Liberty, Wakulla, Franklin, Gulf, Jackson and Calhoun counties in the area west of Tallahassee which Democrats have considered off limits for sometime.
We can win these areas back with Rod Smith as our nominee. Senator Smith has consistently carried counties like Union, Bradford and Putnam in his elections: these are counties where Democrats have been whitewashed in recent years.
Martin County which you suggested should be a Democratic target is one of the most conservative and Republican areas of the state. Indian River County also mentioned in your analysis is not far behind. These South Florida counties are filled with wealthy middle aged Republicans who are economically concerned with tax cuts and small government, whereeas the North Florida area is much more in line with the Democratic message on families, economics and government's role in people's daily lives.
Obviously a school of thought exists that we must compete in the middle sized counties to be successful in the state. But if you take a projection and marry our base counties (Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade) to Alan Boyd's second congressional district and then assume we get 47% in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Orange counties, it is highly likely we win statewide. My point is an area with registered Democrats is more likely to vote Democratic than an area with registered Republicans. It's simple logic.
Besides, areas like Martin and Indian River County have been in the GOP column since the Nixon-Kennedy race and have seldom if ever crossed over to the D side.
On another note, I am really shocked Davis would go to Martin County. Does he realize how few Democratic primary votes are in the area? Obviously his campaign is not targeting properly.
I-95 corridor? What about the I-4 corridor? Isn't that the big vote getting region?
"Senator Smith has consistently carried counties like Union, Bradford and Putnam in his elections: these are counties where Democrats have been whitewashed in recent years."
While I agree that we need a candidate that will play well in North Florida, and I think Rod Smith would do real well North of I-4, I want to point out Smith's vote totals from those counties from 2000 (He ran strong in Putnam):
Union: 1,370
Bradford: 2,637
Putnam:13,617
For comparison sake, here are Gore's votes in those counties in 2000:
Union: 1,407
Bradford: 3,075
Putnam: 12,102
And Nelson's:
Union: 1,915
Bradford: 4,118
Putnam: 13,124
The above post is dead wrong. Rod Smith has gotten much higher percentages than the average Democrat in the most critical counties of North florida. It is these counties where we will be able to shave a substantial amount of votes of the GOPs overall margin statewide. If we nominate Jim Davis we are essentialy handing the governorship to the GOP: Look at it this way......why would we nominate someone from the most Republican area of the state where the likely GOP nominee is from. Fifty bucks says that Davis gets crushed in his home county in a head to head matchup with Charlie Crist. Why would we commit suicide and nominate him? Both Smith and Maddox will be stronger statewide.
I agree- A Davis nomination would be a disaster for the Democrats. The only disaster bigger would be if we follow Kartik's suicidal advice on this blog site to target counties such as Sarasota and Indian River where Democrats make up less than a third of the electorate.
The Mainstream Democrats of Florida are working hard in the coutnies of North Florida where traditional Democrats are looking for a reason to come home to the Democratic Party. Voter turnout and interest in politics are much higher in agricultural areas and rural areas of North Florida and interior rural counties such as Hendry and DeSoto than in seasonal snowbird oriented communities like Sarasota, Indian River, Martin and Pasco counties. I'm willing to bet half the residents of Sarasota County vote in Michigan or Ohio! Those who do vote in Florida are reliably Republicans. I am sure that those were among the worst counties for in the state for Nelson in 2000- that is the race you need to look at, because Nelson is a florida Democrat unlike John Kerry and Al Gore who were DC Democrats who will never play well in this state.
TZ posted:
"The above post is dead wrong."
FYI, those numbers came directly from the Division of Elections web site from the results in those three counties of the 2000 general election for Smith, Gore and Nelson.
A lot less votes must hve been cast in the Senate race, because I am told Rod Smith wins those counties and the other Democrats lose them.
Besides Jim Davis has never appeared on a ballot outside of Hillsborough County. Rod Smith in all has appeared on the ballot in 19 counties.. He much more equpped to run statewide.
Jim Davis has no chance to ever be the Governor of the State of Florida and should do what's right for the party and the state and drop out of the race.
Davis has a very limited scope and is quite frankly less exciting than seeing paint dry. What a loser.
We now know why Kartik doesn't win elections. He targets all the GOP areas!
Not only do I believe we should target North Florida, but if you look at the registration numbers the counties in that part of the state can be even better than Broward or Palm Beach for the Democrats. They are overwhelmingly Democratic and given the chance to vote for a Democrat they will.
If North Florida comes home, we don't need to waste our time with nonsense theories about the "I-95 corridor" or the "Republican horseshoe."
Reueben Askew and Bob Graham won the Governorship largely by ignoring Central Florida and marrying big margins in the panhandle and North Florida with Southeast Florida. Between the two regions more than enough voters to win exist.
I agree. North Florida is where it is at. We as a party made a mistake for years hitting the I-4 corridor area, and it made no difference in the outcome of elections. We need to focus on where our efforts will be rewarded and where we can reach out to disaffected Democrats.
If the Democrats win the panhandle they can kiss my A*&. Any candidate that wins that area needs to be hard right on choice and guns and thus not palatable to Democrats in Central and South Florida.
have not seen much of Davis in Broward. I wonder if he has written us off already?
Folks, please don't over react to every little thing I put for discussion on this blog. I am not advocating Democrats working one area of the state over another in this post, but do point out that Martin, Indian River and other similar coastal counties have far more people than the average Democratic insider in South Florida assumes. I agree with the above poster who said that south Floridians in their arrogance don't realize how many people actually live in some of the counites that they zoom through on the Interstate. To them Jefferson County with 15,000 people looks the same as Brevard County which has close to 600,000 people, because the Interstates are far from developed areas and the large gaps exist between exits. (In fact I-10 seems in some ways more built up than I-95 does through Brevard County, but then again the traffic on I-95 especially between Palm Bay and Cocoa is awful all day long.)
I once did do some targeting for a statewide Democratic candidate that will remain nameless that essentialy showed that a Republican could win a statewide election without carrying any of the 6 largest counties in the state and without carrying a single county between Panama City and Gainesville because the GOP at times have run up such huge margins in medium sized coastal counties like Brevard, Lee and Pasco just to name a few.
Kartik,
You are full of shit. Nobody can carry the state losing the six largest counties. It is impossible. I'd love to see the targeting you refer to.
North Florida especially the west area is clearly rough terrain for us Democrats. The registration numbers are starting to move more and more in the Republican direction.
It's also not where the voters are..it just doesn't make sense to primarily focus here. I live around Orlando and trust me the Republicans would love it if we start blowing off the 1-4 corridor for North Florida.
What do the mainstream Democrats know anyway? Their operation is run by the same folks who helped lose key races for years to the Republicans and help set up this debacle in the first place.
I believe we are more likely to get good direction from the new blood running the Florida Democratic Party. The Mainstream Democrats are run by people who have been part of our losing past. They might as well be called Losestream.
I do like all the public officials involved with the group but have no confidence in their operatives. I find it strange that the mainstreams are looking to overhaul the direction of the party by more or less digging up the biggest losing operatives in the state to direct their efforts.
Its like a baseball team trying to turn things around by acquring the pitchers with the worst losing records in the country. Their excuse is ignore their records because they talk a good game and they have things figured out now.
I'd rather have Dontrelle Willis on my team then some career Double A pitcher who keeps getting rocked each time they dabble in the majors but survives by being a great self promotor. The mainstreams at the moment seem to be more drawn to operatives who talk a good game as opposed to those with a strong record. That's why I think they are headed to be the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of Florida politics.
The Democrats = The Devil Rays. As valid as that sound its a stretch because the Devil Rays, though always a last place team have never started a season quite as 36-84! Yes, even the Devil Rays winning percentage looks good next to that of the Florida Democratic Party!
What a total joke!
I like the Mainstream Democrats too I am just saying their weakness is clearly picking operatives, they went to the bottom of the barrel of the state by picking the whos whos of the biggest losing FL Democratic consultants. It's hard for me to imagine that the consultants who are going to bail us out of our problems are going to be the same ones who threw is deep in this ditch in the first place. These consultants seem to be written off by everyone but the Mainstream Democrats who seem to think we will reach the future by using the same people that created our bleak recent past and present. Even the Florida Democratic Party knows better and is moving on with better people or at least new people. The Mainstreams operatives are a whos whos of rejects that even the Florida Democratic Party won't touch. While I think the public officials who are part of Mainstreams are terrific their weakness in my view is that they seem to prefer to hire people that will suck up to them as opposed to help them succeed. I can't think of any other reason why they would be working with these people because if anything it makes them look like the old guard mired in the past as opposed to who they purport to be which is a group that will help our party progress forward.
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