Scott Powers
With very little early-voter turnout during the first weekend heading towards the Oct. 10 special election to fill the vacant seat in Orange County‘s House District 44, Republican Bobby Olszewski appears to have a clear advantage over his Democratic rival Eddy Dominguez, a late-addition replacement candidate.
Just 443 votes were cast Saturday and Sunday in the first weekend of early voting, less than a half-percent of the total registered voter base in the district, which covers southwest Orange County including parts or all of the cities and towns of Winter Garden, Ocoee, and Windermere, and the large unincorporated communities of Dr. Phillips and Hunters Creek.
Another 4,488 mail-in ballots had been received by the end of Sunday, according to the Orange County Property Appraiser’s Office. That brings the votes to just under 4 percent of the electorate.
On Friday, Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said he was expecting somewhere between 11 and 14 percent voter turnout in the race to replace Republican former state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle of Windermere, who resigned last spring to take a judicial appointment.
Cowles’ office released the party breakdown of the early voters, and it shows a commanding advantage for Republicans, though the raw numbers were small. Of those people who came to one of the three early-voting centers on Saturday or Sunday, 251 were Republicans —that’s 57 percent of the early-voting turn-out. Just 133 Democrats came early, plus 59 independent voters.
In recent years, Democrats usually had early-voter advantages over Republicans, while Republicans held advantages among mail-in voters.
With the voter registration book closing, HD 44’s voter base was 36 percent Republican, 32 percent Democrat, and 32 percent independent or other-party voters.
Olszewski, a businessman and former Winter Garden city commissioner, won a bruising Republican primary election on Aug. 15. He’s campaigned since March.
Dominguez was named less than two weeks ago as the Democrats’ replacement candidate after Paul Chandler withdrew. Dominguez is not on the ballots, but any votes for Chandler are being counted for him.
Early voting runs through Saturday, Oct. 7.
