St. Pete voters hit polls to pick new Bay area leader
November 03, 2009 18:48 PM
St. Petersburg, Florida -- After more than 50 debates and forums, voters in St. Petersburg will choose a new mayor today, replacing Rick Baker with a potentially bold new leader for Tampa Bay.
Candidates Kathleen Ford and Bill Foster waved to honking cars as the sun set Monday, drumming up some last minute support. Both are running in the nonpartisan race to replace Baker, who must leave office after eight years due to term limits.
According to polling, the race remains tight.
"The candidates are within the margin of error, so every vote is going to count and it's going to come down to turnout," said Judith McLaughlin, a political science professor at USF-St. Petersburg.
"Turnout" doesn't necessarily mean people walking into polling places, which are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. More than 30,000 ballots have already been mailed in to the Supervisor of Elections office.
"Our voters realize what a convenience that is, so for our last year we had a 400 percent increase in the number of mail ballot voters," said Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark.
Ford and Foster are the two surviving contenders from a campaign that at one point had ten announced candidates.
Ford says she will focus on cutting property taxes, adding more money to the police budget, and funding non-management city positions.
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