Analysis of the August 2010 Judicial Election Results in Pinellas County and the Sixth Circuit

By Spartacus Thrace

Extract of the August 24, 2010 primary election ballot.

The results for the judicial candidates in the August 24th primary election for Pinellas County and the Sixth Judicial Circuit (comprising Pasco and Pinellas counties) are in, and they are revealing.  The following information was derived from data provided by the supervisors of elections for Pasco and Pinellas counties, and by the Florida Secretary of State’s Division of Elections:

Results

As of election day, there were 897,503 registered voters in the Sixth Circuit divided into 334,874 Republicans (219,890 in Pinellas and 114,984 in Pasco); 339,532 Democrats (231,044 in Pinellas and 108,488 in Pasco), and 223,097 “other” (150,202 in Pinellas and 72,895 in Pasco).  A total of 202,943 votes were cast in this election, 147,315 in Pinellas and 55,628 in Pasco (33,788 Republicans, 18,088 Democrats, and 3,752 “other”).

In the Circuit Court Group 18 contest 173,417 votes were cast.  The vote tally was Edward J. Liebling 42,719 (24.63%), Patricia “Trish” Muscarella 68,593 (39.55%), and Kathryn Welsh 62,105 (35.81%).  As no one received more than 50% of the vote, Liebling is out of the race and Muscarella and Welsh face a run-off election on November 2, 2010. Total campaign expenditures were $38,108.69 for Liebling, $56,456.19 for Muscarella, and $25,946.16 for Welsh.  Welsh had the endorsement of the St. Petersburg Times.

In the Circuit Court Group 20 contest 169,904 votes were cast.  The vote tally was Patrice Moore 86,704 (51.03%) and Tom Ramsberger 83,200 (48.96%).  Moore was endorsed by the St. Petersburg Times.  Total campaign expenditures were $21,798.20 for Moore and $59,821.49 for Ramsberger.

In the Circuit Court Group 27 contest 168,303 votes were cast.  The vote tally was LeAnne Lake 28,640 (17.01%), Kelly Ann McKnight 42,193 (25.06%), Keith Meyer 52,287 (31.06%), and Jeff O’Brien 45,183 (26.84%).  As no one received more than 50% of the vote, Lake and McKnight are out of the race and Meyer and O’Brien face a run-off election on November 2, 2010.  In this race, the St. Petersburg Times endorsed Keith Meyer.  Total campaign expenditures were $12,065.48 for Lake, $14,043.83 for McKnight, $43,527.34 for Meyer, and $13,339.41 for O’Brien.

In the Circuit Court Group 29 contest 170,673 votes were cast.  The vote tally was incumbent Hon. Michael Francis Andrews 91,773 (53.77%) and Deborah Moss 78,900 (46.22%).  The St. Petersburg Times endorsed Andrews.  Total campaign expenditures were $88,657.85 for Andrews and $41,990.44 for Moss.

In the Circuit Group 30 contest 166,982 votes were cast.  The vote tally was Susan St. John 76,726 (45.94%) and Kimberly “Kim” Todd 90,256 (54.05%).  The St. Petersburg Times endorsed Todd.  Total campaign expenditures were $15,390.31 for St. John and $47,423.46 for Todd.  This race is remarkable for several reasons, including the facts that Todd overcame a ballot order effect that favored her opponent, and was the second-highest vote-getter (90,256) after Andrews (91,773) despite being in a judicial race with a turnout that was 3,691 votes smaller than the Andrews-Moss turnout.  Todd’s defeat of St. John was so uniform and complete that, in Pinellas County for example, St. John was able to out-poll Todd in only 31 precincts out of a total of 376.

In the race for Pinellas County Court Judge, Group 8 a total of 121,236 votes were cast.  Incumbent Hon. Thomas B. Freeman trounced his opponent Wayne C. Mineo, with 83,317 votes (68.72%) going to Freeman and 37,919 (31.28%) to Mineo.  The St. Petersburg Times endorsed Freeman.  Total campaign expenditures were $42,745.26 for Freeman and $10,973.13 for Mineo.

Female Judicial Candidate Superiority

This results of this election may have finally put to rest the local myth of superiority of female judicial candidates over male judicial candidates that arose in the wake of Susan Gardner’s 2008 defeat of Angus Williams 346,717 to 190,136 in the Sixth Circuit Judge Group 8 race, despite Williams having the endorsement of the St. Petersburg Times and his outspending Gardner more than 8.6 to 1 in the campaign.  Although Muscarella and Welsh did out-poll Liebling who was at the top of the ballot in the Group 18 race, Meyer and O’Brien out-polled both Lake and McKnight who appeared on the ballot above their names.  It now appears in retrospect that Gardner, who expended a total of $15,199.44 in her campaign, used the combined advantages of ballot order effect and outworking her opponent to overcome Williams, who expended a total of $131,989.71 in his campaign.

Newspaper Effect

Endorsement by the St. Petersburg Times may have also played a small, but important, role these elections. The “newspaper effect”, by which voter preference is influenced approximately 3% in favor of the candidate endorsed by the local newspaper, in combination with other effects, seemed to be apparent in the fact that every candidate endorsed by the St. Petersburg Times either won outright (Moore, Andrews, Todd, and Freeman) or made it into the runoffs (Meyer and Welsh).

Ballot Order Effect

At least two of the candidates, McKnight and St. John, chose races in which their names would appear ahead of other candidates already in the race, apparently banking on the “ballot order effect” to improve their chances of success.  The ballot order effect is based on the notion that candidates appearing at or near the top of a set of candidates will garner more votes than those whose names appear afterward.  Theoretically the effect increases from approximately 2% at the top of the ballot to as much as 5% as the voter goes down-ballot.  As the judicial candidates all appeared down-ballot in relation to most of the other candidates on the August 24th ballot, all of the top-listed judicial candidates should have had a significant edge over their lower-listed opponents.  As born out by the results in the Circuit Court Group 18, 27, and 30 races, any such advantage can be overcome by outworking the opposition or other effects.

Use of the Internet for Messaging

Another, somewhat intangible effect, in this was the use of the internet to distribute the candidate’s message. The impetus for this is the relatively meager coverage the mainstream media gives judicial races. Those who made the most extensive and effective use of the internet, including email, social networking sites such as Facebook, and YouTube, tended to have somewhat stronger support at the polls due to the efforts of those who felt that they had a personal connection with their candidate. One of the candidates, Kimberly Todd, made extensive use of the internet to promote her “brand” and distinguish herself from her opponent. This may have contributed to the result that the point spread between Todd and her opponent was greater than in any of the other circuit court races.

Conclusions

An examination of the various judicial campaigns reviewed in this article reveals that the biggest factors in electability of a judicial candidate are name recognition and a personal connection to voters. Much of this is driven by the candidate’s personality, energy, and creativity, but external factors such as financial resources, quality and frequency of campaign consultation and advice from experts, number and quality of prominent endorsements, and the ability to conduct a long, grueling campaign without making embarrassing mistakes (especially when it comes to public statements and campaign financing). Judicial campaigns are fraught with risk, but the risks can be manageable by a competent candidate who prepares in detail for the campaign. The successful candidate thus can “see” the campaign all the way to Election Day and more effectively accumulates and manages the required resources to accomplish the mission than his or her opponent, while the unsuccessful one does not, and that appears to be what separated the winners and losers in these races.

Judicial Candidate Kim Todd Unveils Latest Web Video

By Spartacus Thrace

 

Kimberly "Kim" Todd (Photo Credit: The Kim Todd for Judge Campaign)

 

(August 20, 2010) Kim Todd, candidate for Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge, Group 30 (Pasco and Pinellas Counties), unveiled her latest web video today, four days before Election Day.  It is impressive.

The video begins with a flashing reminder to vote by August 24th (the final day of the election), followed by a photograph of Kim Todd accompanied by a brief statement about her candidacy and an expression of her gratitude towards all who have helped her.  The remainder of the video is a visual history of her campaign comprising a series of still color photographs and video clips set to Celine Dion singing “God Bless America.”  The video is also a powerful demonstration of the broad support Todd has in her community, ending with a scrolling list of the individuals who have endorsed her in white lettering against a black background.  All-in-all, the video is actually quite moving for many of those who have already watched it.

Judicial Candidate Kim Todd Uses YouTube Messaging

Photo Credit: The Florida Bar

by Spartacus Thrace

Two of the hardest things to figure out when voting for a judge is (1) who the candidates are and (2) what they each believe in.  Many voters enter the voting booth with little or no information about the judicial candidates and try to figure it out as they are eyeballing their ballot for the first time.  Since the major part of the array of county and circuit judges in Pinellas County and the rest of the Sixth Judicial Circuit are very liberal and think of themselves more as ruling oligarchs than public servants, they and the Marxist radicals who run the St. Petersburg Times are perfectly content with keeping the voters in the dark.  It is therefore up to the conservative blogosphere to sort things out.

While researching a larger article on the Pinellas County-Sixth Judicial Circuit judicial candidates for publication in this space in a few more weeks, I was struck by the efforts that a few of the candidates undertook to carefully ration and manage public information about themselves and cultivate a public image based more on voter acceptability than fact.  Most, however, are actually quite decent people who are new to the political process, nervous about letting the Great Unwashed learn heretofore private information about themselves, yet willing to give it a go and mingle with the public on the campaign trail.  Some have even shown some real initiative and creativity in their use of meager campaign funds to promote their respective candidacies.

This is not to give away the coming story, but one candidate in particular, Kimberly “Kim” Todd, candidate for the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court, Group 30 in Pasco and Pinellas counties, has taken to producing a series of amateur YouTube videos and circulating them on Facebook and other social networking venues to define her candidacy, draw attention to the race she is in, and attract supporters.  So far, the effort has helped to increase her visibility among several local political interest groups and the members of the corps of “supervoters” who will likely decide her race come next August 24th.

The first video, released in Mid-May, provided background on Kim Todd, and information about her experience relative to her qualifications to be a judge:

The second video, released on June 25th, is much more of a candidate messaging device, offering the viewer both advice on what to look for in choosing a judge and why he or she should vote for Ms. Todd.  It also subtly but clearly reveals Ms. Todd to be a conservative:

A source close to the Todd campaign says that they expect to release at least one more video, and possibly as many as three videos, between now and the August 24th Election Day.

These videos are quite crude by the standards of modern political media, to be sure, but they also are quite inexpensive, flexible and effective in communicating essential information to voters via the internet.  So far, no other local judicial candidate is exploiting the internet media in this way.  The videos also demonstrate that Ms. Todd is both eager to communicate with voters and capable of working very hard to get their votes, two things that always appeal to voters.  If Ms. Todd is elected Judge of the Circuit Court on August 24th, one can expect that in future judicial races every serious candidate will employ YouTube in their messaging.