Melissa Ross
Zack Whitson, the 29-year-old owner of TWG Technologies and the North Florida millennial whiz kid behind new election data software, says Jacksonville’s mayor’s race is on a knife’s edge, according to his numbers and methodology.
Whitson’s business is behind iElectApp and is also building Sphere, a new online tool letting users know which of their friends and colleagues has voted (or not).
“Our goal is to increase turnout,” Whitson said. “On Election Day we will update the file every hour. And by 4 p.m. users can see who’s voted — you can text or call your friends and get them out to vote.”
Whitson is the son of Jacksonville Beach political consultant Jeff Whitson. “From him, I got the bug. I’ve been around campaigns my whole life.”
Whitson studied finance and political science and has a team of programmers behind iElectApp, which is now tracking the Jacksonville mayor’s race. He said his data shows a surge in Duval Democrats requesting ballots.
At the same time, Whitson tweeted Monday that according to his model, Lenny Curry leads Mayor Alvin Brown in overall early and absentee voting by 1,359 votes.
“Our model is a basic weighted average of three internal polls I have seen in the last two weeks. I took the average of the three polls as it referred to party affiliation, and then broke down DEMs into African-American DEMs and White/Other DEMs,” he said.
“Pundits can agree or disagree with our numbers, it’s our model. I’m not a pollster. We are simply saying if these percentages by party/demographic hold, here are the election results as of today. For the results, I’m taking the SOE files from their portal. Yesterday was only ABs returned through the weekend. Today will be ABs plus EVs through yesterday. I match the voter IDs of those who have voted with the master voter list to determine race because that field is not included in the portal file so I can separate the African-American DEMs.”
In the city’s First Election, Whitson worked with Duval candidates ranging from Mike Hogan to Jimmy Holderfield to Matt Schellenberg.
For the runoff, he’s consulting on the campaign of Jacksonville sheriff candidate Ken Jefferson and District 7 City Council candidate Reggie Gaffney.
As for Brown vs. Curry: “Based on the numbers right now, I think it could be another 2011 — within 1,600 votes. I don’t think that Lenny has the lead that he needs out of absentee ballots. But there are two weeks left.
“And one thing I’m keeping an eye on is which party is bringing out new voters. The Rs were leading that but I don’t think that’s going to hold. In the last seven days the Dems have rallied on absentee requests: 82 percent to the Rs’ 15 percent, which is pretty astounding.
“But what it comes down to in this runoff, is which campaign can bring out their base. That candidate can turn the table and that candidate will win.”
