With less than a month to go before Election Day, St. Pete residents are still largely undecided on who to elect to City Council. Even in the two races including incumbents some 40 percent of those polled haven’t decided who to vote for.
In a St. Pete Polls survey of 591 registered St. Pete voters Monday, 40 percent weren’t sure whether to vote to re-elect Steve Kornell to District 5 or to bring in some fresh blood by casting a ballot for his challenger, Phillip Garrett. Despite the huge number of undecideds, Kornell is still safely leading Garrett by 16 points with 38 percent support compared to Garrett’s 22 percent.
Nearly 42 percent of those polled were still considering whether to vote Charlie Gerdes back into his District 1 seat. Gerdes has an even safer lead against his opponent than Kornell with 39 percent supporting his re-election versus just 20 percent for Monica Abbott.
In the city’s most contentious race between newcomers Lisa Wheeler-Brown and Will Newton in District 7, only 30 percent are still undecided with 34 percent supporting Will Newton and 36 percent supporting Wheeler-Brown.
The drop in undecided voters in the District 7 race is indicative of media coverage. One of the two candidates will replace City Council member Wengay Newton, who has been a staunch opponent to a proposed deal with the Tampa Bay Rays that would allow the Major League Baseball team to search for new stadium sites outside the city. Wheeler-Brown has earned the unwavering support of the Tampa Bay Times based on her support for a deal.
Because the race doesn’t include an incumbent and based on the contentious Rays issue, the Wheeler-Brown/Newton race has been highly publicized not just in St. Pete, but across the Bay area. If Wheeler-Brown were to be elected, a deal between the city and the Rays would be much more likely.
Further weighting that issue is the Tampa Bay Times’ endorsement of a political novice over six-year City Council veteran Steve Kornell.
The high number of undecided voters just weeks before the city election is also indicative of poor voter turnout in a local election in which there are no high-profile races to draw in more voters. The St. Pete primary saw just 14.8 percent voter turnout this August.
Compare that to the November 2013 election in which Mayor Rick Kriseman shared the ballot with former Mayor Bill Foster. That election had more than 32 percent voter turnout. And the primary election before that had 31.5 percent because that election contained the contentious vote to kill the former Pier design known as the Lens. The design was canceled after more than 60 percent of voters rejected it at the polls.
This election contains two incumbents running against relatively no-name candidates and just one race that is anyone’s guess.
Expect all of the candidates, even those enjoying comfortable leads, to spend the next few weeks targeting likely voters with campaign mail and volunteer canvassers.
There are also four ballot questions this election. The poll found that 63 percent of those polled didn’t know about those.
