If all goes according to plan, in about ten days, sixty-one thousand ballots will be mailed to voters in the City of St. Petersburg.
According to a survey from St. Pete Polls commissioned by this blog, 52% of likely voters intend to vote by mail compared to the 43% who say they will vote in person on Election Day (6% are undecided). With that high a percentage of likely voters intending to vote by mail, it's safe to say that the primary election could be, for all intents and purposes, over in about three weeks.
There is no data to support this, but it's my opinion that those in the 'Stop the Lens' crowd who have requested an early ballot will, upon receiving said ballot, rip open the envelope from the Supervisor of Elections, mark their vote on the Pier issue and the mayoral election, and then sign, seal and stamp their reply envelope as quickly as possible. The "Stoppers" have been waiting for months to make their voice heard on the Pier issue, so don't expect many of them to hang on too long to their ballot.
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If this prediction is true -- that the primary elections could be over in three weeks -- it is very likely that it will be Kathleen Ford and Bill Foster making it through to the run-off, despite Rick Kriseman's best intentions. According to the survey from St. Pete Polls, Ford is leading the race with 32% of the vote, followed by Foster at 26%, and Kriseman at 19%.
What is particularly disheartening to the anti-Ford crowd, of which I count myself, is that Ford is crushing Foster in a heads-up scenario. Among likely voters, Ford is beating Foster 51% to 34%, with 15% undecided. Kriseman is actually a much stronger opponent versus Ford, trailing her in a heads-up match-up by just seven points, 34% to 41%.
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This leaves the anti-Ford crowd with a very difficult decision: abandon Foster now and try to push Kriseman into the run-off or continue to support Foster and pray that he is able to make up such a significant deficit.
As of right now, I have two signs in my yard, one for Foster, one for Kriseman.
Regarding the poll’s methodology: The poll was conducted by an automated phone call polling system. The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents’ demographics and the demographics of the registered voter population in St. Petersburg. The demographics used were: party, race and age.
The voters polled were chosen at random within the registered voter population inside of the city of St. Petersburg. Only voters that answered that they were planning on voting in the August 27th primary election were asked the questions included in this survey.
The scientific results shown in the summary below have a sample size of 441 respondents and a margin of error of 4.7% at a 95% confidence level.
