An online panel of Alachua County and Gainesville politicians and political experts predicted City Commissioners Charles Goston and Harvey Budd will be re-elected in Tuesday’s municipal election.
The Democratic political consulting firm Everblue Communications and Republican research firm Meer Research surveyed 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats, one Independent and three undeclared to find bipartisan “insider” predictions of Tuesday’s election results. The survey found 17 out of the 25 panelists, which included City Commissioner Adrian Hayes-Santos and former Alachua County Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut, predicted Goston would win and unanimously predicted County Commission incumbent Ken Cornell would win the county elections in November. The survey’s participants also predicted Randy Wells would win a County Commission seat.
The survey does not statistically reflect Gainesville voters, according to the Meer Research website.
Bryan Eastman, with Everblue Communications, wrote in an email this is the second time Meer and Everblue collaborated on an insider panel. Although the panel results aren’t always accurate, the insiders did correctly predict Hayes-Santos’ and Mayor Lauren Poe’s wins in 2016, he said.
“In these polarizing times, we think it’s important that discussions like these reflect voices on all sides of the spectrum,” Eastman said.
Most of the insiders also predicted Gainesville voters will vote to move elections to August and establish the Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority, a governing body over Gainesville Regional Utilities.
Jeremiah Tattersall, a panel respondent and an American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations field director, said he disagreed with the panel’s slight-majority favor of incumbent Budd over Gail Johnson for At-Large Seat 1.
“The energy out there for these new voters that are coming out are heavy Gail supporters,” Tattersall said.
Tattersall said the results were skewed too conservatively to accurately represent largely Democratic Alachua County voters. The number of registered Democrats in Alachua County is nearly double that of registered Republicans, according to the Supervisor of Elections’ website.
“Really, at the end of the day, Alachua County is a blue dot in a sea of red,” Tattersall said. “It’s not a purple dot, it’s not a slightly red and slightly blue dot. It’s a dark blue dot in a sea of red.”
Check alligator.org for profiles on the candidates who will be on the ballot.
Contact Amanda Rosa at arosa@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter at @AmandaNicRosa.
