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Strongholds not strongly held
By BRYAN GILMER and TIM NICKENS © St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001 ST. PETERSBURG -- At first glance, the top finishers in Tuesday's mayoral primary appear to have carved the city into distinct geographic slices as bitterly divided as the Balkans. Front-runner Rick Baker won the neighborhoods along the northeast and downtown. Second-place finisher Kathleen Ford cut a swath like a backward L, from the Tyrone area out west through northern middle class neighborhoods. Third-place finisher Larry Williams locked up Pinellas Point and the southern tip. And fifth-place finisher Omali Yeshitela finished first in the predominantly black neighborhoods south of Central Avenue. But a St. Petersburg Times analysis of the precinct-by-precinct numbers reveals a more subtle story as Baker and Ford prepare to face off in the March 27 general election. Most of the candidates' strongholds are not that strongly held: Six of the nine candidates were serious contenders in one part of the city or another. With the exception of fourth-place finisher Karl Nurse, who won 54.4 percent of the vote in his home Old Southeast precinct, no candidate won a majority of the votes in any precinct. Each candidate who won just got the largest slice of pie. Ford was the top vote-getter in 41 precincts, while Baker was tops in just 23, and each received more than 40 percent of the vote in four precincts. But Baker's four best percentage showings were in precincts (downtown, Snell Isle, Venetian Isles) that delivered a much higher number of votes, 1,109. Ford's four best margins came in precincts where far fewer people voted (North Kenwood, Disston Heights), for a total of 317 votes. Baker beat Ford handily in their northeast neighborhood, which she has represented for the past four years on the City Council. North of Central Avenue overall, Baker had just a slight edge over Ford: Baker got 6,485 votes to Ford's 6,174. It was Baker's much better showing overall in the neighborhoods south of Central Avenue, where Ford won three precincts and Baker won just one, that gave Baker his decisive margin of victory: Baker garnered 2,417 votes there to Ford's 1,306. South of Central Avenue, Williams (3,278 votes) and Yeshitela (2,792 votes) both outscored Baker and Ford, showing that their supporters, along with Nurse's (1,760 votes), could substantially influence the general election. Overall, Baker appears to have more widespread support than Ford even though Ford won more precincts. "It sounds like I have succeeded in trying to broaden support of the base around the city," Baker said Wednesday, "and I think that is going to be very healthy for the city." Ford did not return several telephone calls. Baker, the former chairman of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce, and Ford, a City Council member, are expected to solicit endorsements from at least some of the other seven mayoral candidates who did not make the cut. Both are also nearly out of campaign money and need to raise more cash for the general election. Nurse, who finished fourth, said he was uncertain whether he would endorse anyone. "St. Petersburg usually goes 100 percent vanilla downtown and then as 'against' as you can get, and that's the top two," he said, referring to Baker's support among business leaders and Ford's reputation as a maverick. "I'm not happy with my choices." Baker appears better positioned than Ford to gain ground among voters south of Central Avenue. In key black precincts won by Yeshitela, Baker regularly won more than 10 percent of the vote and Ford always finished with less than that. But Nurse predicted that black voters would not be thrilled with Baker because of his ties to Gov. Jeb Bush, who has replaced affirmative action, or with Ford, who has criticized police Chief Goliath Davis. "They are faced with their two least-favorite choices," Nurse said of black voters. "Do you want the Bush clone, or the person who has positioned themselves to fire the most popular person in the black community?" In the Pinellas Point area, Baker also ran well ahead of Ford even though Williams won those precincts. Williams' campaign manager, Sue Brett, said Williams took Wednesday off and would not comment until today at the earliest. "There is a lot of symmetry between Larry and the Baker plan," Adam Goodman, Baker's campaign consultant, said of Baker's campaign proposals. "I think the step for Larry Williams supporters is a small step to backing Rick."
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