Janelle Irwin Taylor
The crickets are chirping in the Tampa mayoral race, as Florida Politics columnist Joe Henderson noted this week.
But behind the buzz of insects, figuratively speaking, is the steady hum of what Henderson described as Jane Castor’s textbook campaign.
Case in point, the campaign is soldiering on, head down, but eyes forward with a new video on social media touting Castor’s support.
“I support Ms. Jane Castor because she supports our community and she supports my family,” said Seminole Heights resident Channing Sampson in a 36 second video posted Tuesday.
It’s a feel-good sort of video featuring smiling residents strolling through Waterworks Park on the Tampa riverfront. And it paints Castor as the sort of leader you’d feel comfortable chatting up during a chance meeting at a coffee shop.
“She’s almost like a mom figure to everyone,” one young resident says in the video.
Another, Pastor Tom Jones from Heaven Destiny Church in East Tampa, calls her “accessible to the community.”
“I can’t say that with the other candidates,” he continues.
There’s only one other candidate now, philanthropist David Straz. While Castor is spending the final weeks of her campaign shooting out positive messages and hosting get out the vote events, Straz is trying to drum up as much support as possible by disparaging Castor’s reputation by reminding voters about controversial issues stemming from Castor’s leadership with the Tampa Police Department.
“My goal as Tampa’s next Mayor is to be a leader for everyone in our beautiful city. Are you #TeamJane? Let me know with words of support of your own or, more importantly, getting out to vote on Election Day, April 23rd or voting early starting on April 14th! We can do this together,” Castor wrote on Facebook.
With a more than 30-point advantage over Straz, Castor needs only to ensure her supporters show up on Election Day. There’s very little data to gauge potential voter turnout at this point, but what data exists shows Castor’s campaign might be right to focus efforts on boosting turnout.
Of the more than 55,000 ballots mailed to voters for the runoff one week ago, just 175 people have returned a ballot, according to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections office. At the same point following mail ballots being delivered to voters for the March 5 election, more than 1,100 had returned a ballot to the Supervisor of Elections.
However, on day eight the number of ballots returned for the runoff jumped to more than 6,000, triple the number returned at that point for the March 5 election.
Straz has to fight harder to earn more support. He finished with less than 16 percent of the vote in the March 15 election compared to Castor’s 48 percent.
But Straz has gotten at least some criticism for negative campaigning, which he defends by arguing his ads are truthful. They’re also not all negative.
Straz pushed a previously produced video on Facebook Monday featuring portions of his election night speech in which he touted his plan to ensure prosperity for all of Tampa’s neighborhoods, a common theme in his campaign.
