by David Chapman
Staff Writer
Tuesday’s first election was merely a stop in the road to let some passengers off the ballot.
With the fields narrowed, runoff candidates, including mayoral contenders Alvin Brown and Mike Hogan, now have almost eight weeks to convince voters to elect them in the May 17 general election.
When it comes to the mayoral race, Tuesday’s results were somewhat surprising on different levels, according to local political academics.
“I think it was a fairly impressive showing for Alvin Brown,” said Stephen Baker, Jacksonville University political science professor. “It opens up for Democrats to be revitalized.”
Brown, a Democrat, enters the runoff with Hogan, a Republican, after receiving close to 24 percent of the vote.
Brown beat Republicans Audrey Moran (22 percent) and Rick Mullaney (16 percent), two other strongly supported candidates, to remain in the race.
Hogan received 34 percent of the 151,350 votes that were cast.
“The Brown campaign was obviously a surprise,” said Matthew Corrigan, University of North Florida political science department director. “His turnout helped him get over the hump.”
Democrats tend to do well in early voting, said both Baker and Corrigan, but Brown’s strength was the turnout on election day.
Brown trailed his three major opponents in early voting, but made up the difference and more in bringing people to the polls.
“I think everyone was underestimating Brown,” said Corrigan.
As for Moran and Mullaney, candidates who many considered viable runoff candidates against Hogan, Baker said the negative advertising impacted both of their chances and likely turned off some voters to their messages.
Corrigan agreed and added that a race featuring three Republican candidates might have been too crowded to allow more than one to collect the votes necessary for a runoff.
But while Moran and Mullaney are out of the race, the former candidates and their numerous supporters will still have an effect.
Both Corrigan and Baker said it will be important for Brown, especially, to reach out to supporters of the former candidates as he faces off against Hogan, who has a large base.
“He has to first reach out to unite all Democrats behind him, then turn his attention to independents and moderate Republicans who voted for Mullaney and Moran,” said Baker.
Corrigan said the immediate issue for each candidate is raising money, with an eye on supporters and donors whose candidate lost in the first election.
Corrigan added that the need to raise money might also give voters a slight break from potential negative advertising.
Baker agreed and said that the need to generate donations is significant, but new possibilities exist if runoff candidates look at the donor lists of the contenders who lost.
“If you look at the donor lists, there’s an awful lot of money out there,” said Baker. “Some will join sides, some others will sit out.”
Corrigan said TV and media opportunities will play an important role in the race, especially for Brown, who “needs to use every single media opportunity to his advantage,” including televised debates.
In addition, he said Brown will have to reach outside his base to attract other voters and encourage them to side with him.
As for Hogan, Corrigan said his base consisted of the police and fire unions and the First Coast Tea Party, among other groups.
That provides an ongoing advantage, he said.
Baker said he doesn’t expect Hogan to stray much from the path that took him to the top in the first election.
Still, Baker said the Hogan camp will likely keep an eye on the polls and, if negative ads are run, expect them to tie Brown to Democrats at the national level.
As for voter turnout, Corrigan said he was surprised that just 29.4 percent, or 151,350, of the county’s 514,771 registered voters cast ballots.
But, he said that was similar to levels across the state. He does expect the interest and participation to be higher for the May 17 election.
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