Yesterday was the special election for the Florida State House District 3 seat. The totals for the district were:
Clay Ford (Rep) 7,325 55.6%
Liz Campbell (Dem) 5,860 44.4%
While this was a defeat for Liz, I believe it was a victory for the Florida Democratic Party and the netroots.
Kansasr sent me an email last night with this ananlysis of the voting:
Campbell lost the early/absentee vote badly, 2471 to 1396 and it was downhill from there. Once the early votes were in I knew it was over.
She did win the Election Day vote in Escambia County , 4179 to 3804, but the Republican precinct in Santa Rosa County went for the Republican on election day 792 to 207.
Turnout in the black precincts (more blacks than white) was 12.8%, white precincts 18.9%. The difference was the lower black turnout (the 6.1% difference was the equivalent of 1000 votes) and the one Santa Rosa precinct, which Ford carried by 778 votes.
Yesterday I had predicted in an email to kansasr that the results would be Ford 55% and Campbell 45%. What I wanted to see, though, were the vote totals, i.e., how many people actually voted.
In the primary just three weeks ago, the total Republican vote was 6,972 and the total Democratic vote was 3,784, or a 65%-35% split. That's about the same percentage by which Liz lost the general election to Holly Benson back in November.
But, immediately after the primary, both the netroots and the Florida Democratic Party kicked in with significant participation. The result was that the Republican vote in the general went up 553 people (8%). The Democratic vote went up 2,087 (55%).
People, that's significant!
While Liz is a hard worker and certainly game, it's no secret to anyone familiar with my work here at dkos that I thought there was a stronger candidate available. But, what this election shows is that with a relatively small input of resources, it is possible for someone willing to hustle to be competitive.
The Republicans spent over $200,000 on this election while Liz collected less than a fourth of that. That's the whole point of the 50 state strategy, forcing Republicans to spend gobs of money defending seats they thought were going to be a cakewalk.
The other long term benefits are that local Democrats were able to flex their muscles. Future potential candidates saw that support is available if they choose to run. This is how you build a state-wide party. This is how you build a strong bench so that you can field strong candidates for house and senate district elections.
Our heart goes out to Liz. Like Rocky, while she might have lost the fight, she wasn't knocked out. She was a contender. That's a great moral victory that she can be proud of.