Florida Congressional Challenges need any polling data available on their races

[philb]

or on ethnic and religious group voters in their counties

The Congressional Districts in need of polling data from around the time of the election or
Exit Poll data are

CD21 Broward/Dade counties
CD24 Orange/Volusia/Seminole/Brevard counties
CD5 Pasco/Lake/Hernando/Citrus counties

If the official votes are correct, that would imply that a lot of Dems voted Repub or virtually no NPAs voted for the Dems
But there is internal canvas information and media articles citing polls that indicate otherwise.
Broward is the most liberal/Dem county in florida and there were indications that the majority of NPAs there(thousands) were voting Dem rather than Repub- as in other such areas.
And Media articles, polls of Hispanics in Dade showed the majority for the first time ever voted more dem than repub in other races.
More hispanic votes for Dem governor candidate(Davis) than the Repub Crist and the Dem challenger in that area state house race won for the first time I can remember. Broward/Dade is majority "minorities"- large hispanic and black areas. The black areas usually vote strongly Dem. This time a lot more Hispanics seemed to be voting Dem. Yet it didn't show up in the official votes of CD21.

Similar for Pasco and Lake counties in CD5. Both of these ES&S counties had high undervotes, as did the ES&S machines in Dade and Broward.

Polling data might shed light of which of the possible options explain the official votes that the candidates don't believe based on their pre-election expectations.

Either lots of Dems voted Repub or virtually none of the thousands of NPAs voted for Dems and no Repubs(including lots of Hispanics) voted Dem,

or touch screen swithing/compiler "glitches" affected these areas as they were documented to in 2004

or the high undervotes in these counties were mostly Dem votes (as in Sarasota)

Anyone know of polling or exit poll info that would shed light on this?

www.flcv.com/Florida6.html

[philb]

1. Hispanic voter shift: to Dems, anomaly or new rule?

Hispanic voter shift: anomaly or new rule?
By JOSE CARDENAS and ADAM C. SMITH Published November 19, 2006 St Petersburg Times


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Here's something Florida Republicans a year ago never dreamed possible: a Democrat representing heavily Republican Little Havana in the state House.

But that's precisely what happened on Election Day, as Democrats in Florida and across the country gained ground among Hispanic voters. If the trend continues, it could have far-reaching political implications.

On Election Day, for the first time since 1976 - when Jimmy Carter got at least half of the Hispanic vote here - the Democratic candidate on the ballot's biggest race got at least an equal share of their vote as the Republican, said Sergio Bendixen, a Democratic pollster in Miami.

Democrat Jim Davis and Republican Charlie Crist each got 49 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to television network exit polls.

"We now believe we are in a position to be much more aggressively competitive within the Hispanic community as a result of this success," said Luis Navarro, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party.

Another exit poll by the nonpartisan William C. Velasquez Institute found that Davis received 53 percent of the Hispanic vote and Crist received 42 percent. The poll also indicated that two-thirds of Hispanic voters cast ballots for Democrats in their congressional races.

"The question is whether this is a trend or is it a reaction in '06 to A) the immigration issue or B) the anti-Republican feeling nationwide," said the institute's Alvaro Fernandez.

Nowhere was the swing for Democrats more evident than in Miami-Dade County, where Democrat Luis Garcia was elected to the state House in a district that includes Little Havana and that historically has been dominated by Republicans.

Like Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is married to a Mexican immigrant and speaks Spanish, President Bush has made Hispanic voters a priority.

Bush got about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004. But exit polls last week showed that Republican candidates for the House of Representatives received only about 30 percent of the vote, while Democratic candidates got 69 percent.

This week President Bush named Florida Sen. Mel Martinez general chairman of the Republican Party, a move seen by both Republicans and Democrats as an attempt to woo Hispanic voters back.

"Democrats should be happy that this vote swung back our way," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a liberal advocacy group in Washington, D.C. But "if there isn't comprehensive immigration reform there will be consequences for Democrats because then we will look like Republicans."

In contrast to Hispanic voters around the country, who tend to vote for Democrats, Florida has long been an anomaly because of its Cuban-American bloc that prefers the Republican Party.

But not since 1996, when many Hispanic voters across the country were turned off by heated Republican rhetoric over welfare reform, have Florida Republicans fared so poorly with Hispanic voters. Al Cardenas, former state GOP chairman, said it was a direct result of the immigration debate.

"There was a lot of rhetoric during this campaign season that hurt the sensibilities of some Hispanics and the end result was a predictable step-back," Cardenas said.

Rosenberg said the firm stand on illegal immigration by some Republican candidates could harm their party long term in Florida and some Southwest states. He compared it to California in the 1990s when then Gov. Pete Wilson promoted a ballot initiative that, before it was overturned by the courts, denied most public services to undocumented immigrants.

Some political observers say Wilson doomed the Republican Party among Hispanic voters in California, causing Democrats to eventually dominate state government.

In Florida, increasing diversity within the Hispanic community has gradually improved Democrats' chances at the votes of Hispanics, who make up about 12 percent of the electorate.

South Florida remains largely Cuban-American. But Puerto Ricans and Hispanics from Mexico and Central and South America who are more inclined to vote for Democrats have increasingly moved to the state, particularly to Central Florida.

For example, while there are 736,000 Cubans and 90,000 Puerto Ricans in Miami-Dade County, according to the U.S. Census, in Orange County there are 115,000 Puerto Ricans but only 16,000 Cubans.

"I think what has been happening in the last couple of decades, a large influx of non-Cuban Latinos have been moving to the area," said Annabelle Conroy, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Central Florida. "They don't have the attachment to the Republican Party that Cuban-Americans do."

In South Florida, increasing diversity in the Hispanic population also was one reason Garcia said he won his state House seat.

He pointed out that a well-known Cuban restaurant former President Ronald Reagan visited in the 1980s to promise that Cuba would be freed from Castro is now a Mexican restaurant.

In addition to demographic changes, Garcia and Navarro, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, said the party launched an unprecedented media campaign statewide to try to get more Hispanic voters.

In South Florida, the party ran Spanish-language radio and television advertisements highlighting to Cuban-Americans issues of concern to all voters, such as property insurance.

"Our voters are getting more sophisticated. They will vote on candidates and issues" besides those related to Cuba, said Garcia. "Keep in mind that this is not Little Havana anymore. It's like little Latin America now."

Along the Interstate 4 corridor, the advertising campaign featured bilingual spots targeting non-Cuban Hispanics on economic issues.

But not everyone sees gloom for the Republican Party among Hispanics in Florida.

While Hispanics in Central Florida voted predominantly for Democrats, Crist still received 70 percent of the Cuban vote in Miami-Dade County, said Dario Moreno, director of the Metropolitan Center at Florida International University.

What made the difference in Miami-Dade, he said, was that some Cuban-Americans did not go to the polls because they were disenchanted by infighting among Republicans.

[nicknameless]

2. K&R for greater visibility

[OnTheOtherHand]

3. the only poll I know of for ANY of these races

was Zogby 10/21 in FL-24, Feeney 45%, Curtis 43%. That had 402 LVs, so the nominal margin of error would be about 5 points on vote share, 10 points on margin. Not very informative, unfortunately.

Here is pollster.com's 'poll central' for House races: http://pollster.com/house.php

[philb]

4. What about polls for Florida hispanics? S. Florida African-Americans?

South Florida Voters?
Tampa/St Petersburg area voters?
Central Florida/Orange County?


I'll do a computer search