Peter Bergerson, PhD is a political science professor at
Florida Gulf Coast University. He recently spoke at the Southwest Florida
Museum of History on the topic of the Florida’s gubernatorial elections from
1964 to the upcoming election.
I had the chance to sit down with Bergerson to get his ask
him a few questions relating to his lecture.
In your lecture you
focus on the election gubernatorial races from 1964 to present day. What is the
significance of the 1964 gubernatorial race?
The significance of
the changing of the constitution is what 1964 did. And it changed the election
cycle so that the governor of Florida would be in an off-year or
non-presidential year, and the impact of that was that it changed the rules. It
changed the nature of who gonna vote and in essence we’ve seen the outcome of
the elections change in political parties, and what happens is you have such a
significant lower turnout from anywhere as 10, 15, 20 percent, whereas the
highest turn out in an off-year election, like we’ve seen is 40 percent [of
registered voters].
Well, presidential years it’s in the 50s, mid 50s to 60
percent. And usually in the off-years those who vote are usually in the 30
percent range. That’s the effect.
And you have a different electorate. It doesn’t mean you
can’t vote, but different people come out to vote. And who those differences
effect the outcome of the election. And so one of the things is that you have
Democrats who are less like to vote in off years than are Republicans, and so
are other groups such as women, such as Hispanics, such as blacks and again,
those who are less educated and those who have less income. That the
significance of changing the constitution to having an election in a
non-presidential year.
Why are Democrats less
likely to vote in an off-year election?
They are less enthusiastic. There is less money being spent.
Less campaigning. The engagement/the level of commitment by the political
parties is much smaller and much less. The “voter outreach” is not as great.
There are fewer Republicans that vote too, but the
proportion is greater among Democrats.
And, Republicans in comparison to Democrats have a higher
value placed on voting than do Democrats. In other words, there’s this issue of
political socialization. Republicans place a greater intrinsic value ongoing to
the polls. They see that their vote means more than Democratic voters.
Why would younger
voters feel less incline to participate in off-year elections?
First of all, youth voters have the lowest of any age group
than others. The primary reason is that their lives are at a different course.
Voters between 18 and 30 are involved in education, starting jobs, starting a
family, and their primary focuses are on those immediate issues and they’re not
engaged as much in the political system as the older demographics. Those after
30 polls go up, and after 65 it goes back down again. So, each of the voting
demographic groups have a different commitment, and they place a different
value on candidates and issues and how it effects their lives and how it
interacts with their lives and what they’re doing.
Do you see the
upcoming amendment 2 as bring out more youth voters in the upcoming election?
No. I don’t think so. It may bring out more youth voters for
the amendment, but will that increase the percentage of those who are likely to
vote in that demographic age group: I don’t think so, no.
So, other words that in the presidential year, approximately
18 percent of the total vote of a hundred million voters, 18 percent of those
were youth vote.
One of the reasons President Obama won, he got about 65
percent of the youth vote. That number of 18 percent stayed the same. But what
was skewed was that the high percentage of them voted for Obama. Using that as
an example, my guess is that the turnout will still be between 15 and 18
percent. A large percent of them will vote in favor of Amendment 2.
Will it increase the voter turnout: probably not. Will it
increase the support for Amendment 2: probably yes.
Would you agree that
the majority of the youth vote is of the liberal mindset?
In some cases, yes.
In that case, do you
predict the youth vote to swing more so in favor a democratic governor like
Charlie Crist?
Some will, sure. Some will, but normal it’s not going to be
the disparity of a 60/40 you would see in favor of Amendment 2. You still will
see, say a, 55 percent in favor of Charlie Crist versus Governor Scott.
Based on your
knowledge of gubernatorial elections and what you’ve seen in previous election,
where do you see this election going?
Well it’s a flip of a coin at this stage here in the middle
of October. I would say that at a flip of a coin either can win. I think that
you can make a case that either candidate can win. Incumbents tend to win more
often than they lose, so I think you can make a case for Governor Scott.
I also, on the other hand, keep in mind that when Governor
Scott was elected four years ago didn’t get 50 percent of the vote. And so, I
think you can make a strong case based on that, that he’s not a popular
governor, or at least not as popular as other have been. And Charlie Crist,
even though he may have his own baggage is well known. And so the race, I think
is gonna come down to the last week, and perhaps maybe even the last weekend.
In other word, my guess is that 80 percent, maybe perhaps as
much as 90 percent of the voters have made up their mind, but what you have is
somewhere between 10 and 12 percent who haven’t made up their mind, or may
change their mind or may not vote. And that percentage will determine the
outcome.
You also have at this stage the unknown of a third party
candidate. Historically, third party candidates always hurt the incumbent more
than the challenger.
We’ll see what happens.
Can you give me a
breakdown of the demographics that turn out for an off-year election?
Well they are going to be mostly white, mostly female. The
turnout will be determined in the I-4 corridor, and that I-4 corridor is from
Orlando to Tampa, and the Dade and Broward counties. Those will be the key
because that is where the largest bulk of Republican and Democratic voters are.
Another key factor will be the voter turnout out in the
panhandle area where you have people of have a high democratic voter
registration but high republican voting.
Each election is different but because of the dynamics of
this election and the closeness of it, it’s going to be very hard at this stage
who is gonna to win
Men are overwhelmingly, the majority will vote for Governor
Scott. Women are gonna vote more so for Charlie Crist
What is going to determine the outcome of the election is
the swing voters or the undecided voters. And how united are the two parties.
If one party is more united than the other in close parties like this one the
elections are won in small margins of 2-3 percent, so each the candidates has
kind of micro-targeted these different groups in order to peel off some of
their votes: whether it’s Hispanics or blacks, environmentalist or teachers.
What stands out about
this election that differs of previous gubernatorial elections?
I think one of the things that stands out among lots of
thing is the amount of money is far and away. The amount is significant. This
is the most costly campaign in Florida history, one of the most costly in U.S.
history followed perhaps only by New York, Illinois or California. This is
partially because Florida is a large state. It has multiple media markets.
That’s one of the things I think stands out.
People always talk about the negative nature of the
campaign. I don’t think it’s to the point of being offensive to me. One of
advantages of political campaigns, as long as they’re honest, and I have –
maybe there are – not seen blatant lies.
One of the things about negative campaigning is that it
brings out things that are legitimate issues about the character of the
candidates of the other party. There are three things that you want to do in a
campaign on the media side: one, define yourself; two, define your opponent –
obviously negatively; and three, define and own the issues. If they are
successful at those three, they’re gonna win.
From a media perspective, that’s what they’re spending
millions of dollars on.
Is there any benefit
to take the moral high ground when speaking about you opponent?
For the incumbent there is. The incumbent stands more to
lose from negative ads. But often times the negative ads from the incumbent
side tend to be by “Well, I don’t know those people.” They’re pacs or 501(c)(4)
(third party groups not associated legally or formally with the campaign for
office) to groups. So, they (the incumbent) disassociate themselves.
Negative ads, if they’re run and sponsored by the candidate,
and they’re totally uncivil, then yeah, they hurt.
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