Alachua County Primary Predictions – 2016

Polls close tomorrow, Tuesday August 30th at 7 PM. If you haven’t voted already please do. You can find your polling location here and my recommendations here.

My predictions:

• Turnout will be ~23% (for Dems).
• Hutch, Roy, Barton and Amendment 4 will win in landslides.
• Byerly and Darnell will win with ~55%.
• Murphy and Bullard (HD-10) will win decidedly.

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Closed Democratic Primary for County Commissioners and Sheriff:

We’re on track for a turnout in the low 20’s. We might break 25% if there’s a major push for turnout on election day.

Dem votes as of 8/28
Voted Early	6202
Voted By Mail	7071
At the Polls	0
Total	13273
Turnout so far	15.41%

Unlikely voters, those who have voted in 0 of 3 or 1 of 3 previous primaries are making up less than 30% of the vote. Note that this doesn’t take into account the newly registered who didn’t have an opportunity to vote in previous elections. There’s a lot of people in Gainesville who are young and/or registered for the first time due to the presidential primary and are voting for the first time during this election cycle. If there was an anti-incumbent surge I’d expect a higher vote share from unlikely voters.

Primary Voting	Total People
0 of 3	1,096	8.26%
1 of 3	2,833	21.34%
2 of 3	2,874	21.65%
3 of 3	6,470	48.75%
Total People	13,273

There have been major efforts to turnout the African-American vote the previous Sunday and this past Saturday. The payoff has been good for unlikely voters but the overall effect has been small. African-Americans make up a disproportionately higher share of unlikely voters so far but the total vote share is still low. It seems that the majority of people early voting were regular voters. In fact, the vote share of African-Americans has gone down from 24.5% on Tuesday (8/23) to 22.8% by Sunday (8/28). The total vote share of African-Americans is likely to go down further unless there’s a massive turnout on Tuesday.

Primary Voting	Race/Ethnicity: Voting as of 8/28/16
	African American	%	Asian	%	Caucasian	%
0 of 3	419	38.23	15	1.37	616	56.2
1 of 3	657	23.19	56	1.98	2,000	70.6
2 of 3	608	21.16	29	1.01	2,154	74.95
3 of 3	1,342	20.74	37	0.57	4,996	77.22
Total People	3,026	22.8	137	1.03	9,766	73.58

Primary Voting	Race/Ethnicity: Voting as of 8/28/16
	Hispanic	%	Native American	%	Total People
0 of 3	41	3.74	4	0.36	1,096	8.26%
1 of 3	112	3.95	8	0.28	2,833	21.34%
2 of 3	67	2.33	13	0.45	2,874	21.65%
3 of 3	82	1.27	12	0.19	6,470	48.75%
Total People	302	2.28	37	0.28	13,273

The early voters so far are the people who put these incumbents into office to begin with. I expect ~6,500 people to vote at the polls on Tuesday. They are likely to be younger and more diverse then those who have already voted; but there would have to be a lot of them to make a difference at this point considering the numbers.

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Alachua County School Board:

This race is seeing a lot of turnout with Republicans and likely voters. For a winning Kinsey coalition there should be a lot of young, African-American, and unlikely voters as well as a high Republican turnout.

All County Voters as of 8/29
Voted Early	8235
Voted By Mail	12195
At the Polls	0
Total	20430
Turnout so far	11.24%

The vote share of African-Americans drops to less than 16% for the School Board but the number of unlikely voters is still disproportionately higher, especially for those who have not voted in any of the last three primaries.

Primary Voting	Race/Ethnicity: Voting as of 8/28/16
	African American	%	Asian	%	Caucasian	%
0 of 3	505	25.12	47	2.34	1,361	67.71
1 of 3	707	17.02	93	2.24	3,163	76.16
2 of 3	643	14.05	51	1.11	3,745	81.84
3 of 3	1,385	14.29	56	0.58	8,116	83.75
Total People	3,240	15.86	247	1.21	16,385	80.2

Primary Voting	Race/Ethnicity: Voting as of 8/28/16
	Hispanic	%	Native American	%	Total People
0 of 3	87	4.33	7	0.35	2,010	9.84%
1 of 3	178	4.29	12	0.29	4,153	20.33%
2 of 3	111	2.43	23	0.5	4,576	22.40%
3 of 3	115	1.19	18	0.19	9,691	47.44%
Total People	491	2.4	60	0.29	20,430

The vote share of Republicans, who have their own primary for HD-21 right now, is 27.5%. Even if every non Democrat voted for Kinsey (which they’re not) it wouldn’t be enough to carry a winning coalition.

Primary Voting	Party: Voting as of 8/28/16
	Democrats	%	Green	%	Libertarian	%
0 of 3	1,096	54.53	2	0.1	12	0.6
1 of 3	2,833	68.22	6	0.14	12	0.29
2 of 3	2,874	62.81	2	0.04	11	0.24
3 of 3	6,470	66.76	2	0.02	4	0.04
Total People	13,273	64.97	12	0.06	39	0.19

Primary Voting	Party: Voting as of 8/28/16
	Other	%	Republicans	%	Unaffiliated	%
0 of 3	60	2.99	308	15.32	532	26.47
1 of 3	52	1.25	873	21.02	377	9.08
2 of 3	50	1.09	1,394	30.46	245	5.35
3 of 3	24	0.25	3,047	31.44	144	1.49
Total People	186	0.91	5,622	27.52	1,298	6.35

The millennial vote (those under 35) hasn’t turned out in large numbers yet. They do make up a disproportionate share of first time primary and unlikely voters. A phenomenon that’s likely exaggerated due to many of them recently registering to vote for the first time. People over 65 make up just under half of the votes cast so far. This is likely going to go down on election day but the trend will most likely hold. Old people vote much, much more often than young people especially in non-presidential elections.

Primary Voting	18 to 24	%	25 to 34	%	35 to 49	%
0 of 3	198	9.85	301	14.98	404	20.1
1 of 3	354	8.52	520	12.52	689	16.59
2 of 3	105	2.29	264	5.77	619	13.53
3 of 3	44	0.45	195	2.01	711	7.34
Total People	701	3.43	1,280	6.27	2,423	11.86

Primary Voting	50 to 64	%	65+	%	Total People
0 of 3	581	28.91	523	26.02	2,010
1 of 3	1,198	28.85	1,392	33.52	4,153
2 of 3	1,452	31.73	2,136	46.68	4,576
3 of 3	2,708	27.94	6,033	62.25	9,691
Total People	5,939	29.07	10,084	49.36	20,430

I know all the campaigns are going to be pulling out all the stops until polls close; but Kinsey and Thorpe have an uphill battle ahead of them.