Judging by what we see in our local elections, you’d think an overwhelming majority of Indian River County’s nearly 119,000 registered voters were Republicans.
You’d be wrong.
According to the Supervisor of Elections’ latest statistics, only 46 percent of the county’s registered voters are Republicans, if you don’t count the nearly 900 residents who temporarily changed parties in recent weeks to vote in the Republican primary for Sheriff later this month.
That means more than half of the county’s voters don’t identify as Republican – which means there’s no good reason for more Democrats to not run for local public office.
But they don’t.
Democrats don’t run, I’m told by the party’s local leaders, for two reasons.
First, people who might be attractive candidates don’t want to endure the personal attacks and overall nastiness that dominate the discourse in today’s polarized politics.
And recent history shows that they struggle to sway enough of the independent-minded, No Party Affiliation voters they need to beat Republican opponents.
“The potential to win is there, if the NPAs and Democrats presented a united front, especially with an increasing number of younger people moving away from both parties,” said Adriana de Kanter, chairman of the Democrats of Indian River County’s executive committee.
“But our polling data tells us the NPAs in this county are not left-leaning,” she added. “They tend to vote Republican here, which is not unusual. NPAs usually lean right in Republican counties and lean left in Democratic counties.”
We’re in a Republican county.
Democrats make up only 28 percent of the county’s registered voters. The number of NPA voters has been growing here, but they still represent just 25 percent of the local electorate. The other 1 percent belongs to a collection of smaller, off-Broadway parties.
“The NPAs need to be motivated, or they tend to not vote,” de Kanter said. “There has to be a candidate they like or an issue that interests them on the ballot. Otherwise, you can’t count on them to turn out.”
The local Republicans have no such problem. They’re well-organized and well-funded, which has been enough to convert their 46 percent into years of dominance of our local politics.
Not only do Republicans occupy most of the elected offices in the county and its municipalities – including four of the five seats on the School Board – but they’re also rarely challenged by Democrats, who meekly have forfeited any meaningful say in our local governance.
“We’re trying to recruit people to run for local office, but it’s a challenge here,” de Kanter said. “Younger people, particularly career people with young families, don’t want to get into the rough-and-tumble of politics the way it is today.
“A lot of good people who would make appealing candidates don’t think it’s worth the trouble.”
Democrats can win here, though.
Mara Schiff was elected two years ago to the School Board, where she is the current vice chairman, and Rey Neville was elected to the Vero Beach City Council last year. Both won non-partisan races, but both were known Democrats.
“That I ran and got elected was, in some ways, a fluke,” Schiff said. “I was a good candidate and ran a very good campaign, but I slipped in under the radar, before the Republicans realized it was a possibility.
“When the votes were in, my jaw hit the floor, too, given the stronghold Republicans have on the county,” she added. “But after I won in August, they got involved in the November races and slammed Stacey and Merchon.”
She was referring to Democrats Stacey Klim and Merchon Green, both of whom also ran for School Board seats in 2018 and were defeated by Teri Barenborg and Jackie Rosario, two Republicans whose campaigns received an autumn push from their party’s local leadership.
Still, Schiff believes Democratic candidates – specifically, those who feel compelled to serve their communities, possess the competence and communication skills necessary to excite voters, and have the mettle to withstand political combat – should seek local public office.
Neville agreed, though he quickly added that “it would take a very well-known person who has been around town a long time and done a lot of stuff in the community” to overcome the county’s Republican establishment.
There’s no need for local Republicans to worry this year.
Four of them are running in the Aug. 18 primary to succeed Sheriff Deryl Loar. The winner will advance to November’s general election, where he will face NPA candidate Deborah Cooney, who has no believable chance to win.
No Democrat bothered to run for sheriff, the highest-paid and most important office in the county.
Likewise, there are no Democrats running for any of the Republican-held constitutional offices: Property Appraiser Wesley Davis, Clerk of Court Jeff Smith and Supervisor of Elections Leslie Swan are all unopposed, while Tax Collector Carole Jean Jordan faces a primary challenge from her former chief of staff, Brenda Bradley, also a Republican.
Nor will you find a Democrat on the ballot for three County Commission and two School Board seats, all of which will be decided in the Aug. 18 primary.
That could change in 2021.
“If there’s a big Democratic win in the coming election – the presidency, the Senate, perhaps in this state – it could embolden Democrats in this county to run,” de Kanter said. “As a Democrat in this county, you’d have to be a moderate to appeal to most voters. But maybe if potential candidates see Democrats winning across the country, they’ll believe they can win here.”
