Issue #130: Democrat Allen Boyd's Victories in the Florida Panhandle (Part 1)

A look back at blue North Florida

The first article that I ever wrote was about North Florida. Back in 2011, I wrote about the election loss of Florida 2nd district Democrat Allen Boyd. The loss, which came as the GOP swept many southern districts in the 2010 red wave, was the latest sign of the end of “all politics is local.” Since then, that sentiment has only proven more true, as down-ballot rural/southern democrats who used to hold on despite top-of-the-ticket GOP gains prove rarer and rarer. Of course, the same is true on the other side, as suburban Republicans find themselves losing more and more seats to the Democrats.

For this substack, I wanted to look back at Allen Boyd’s elections, re-visiting this topic with much better maps and hopefully better grammar and spelling.

In addition, this substack will be broken into two parts! Why? Because I have two much to say and substack has limits on size for emails. Here is part 1.

The Democratic Panhandle

Through the 1990s and before, the panhandle of Florida was reliable Democratic bastion. There were virtually no Republican local officials across the rural counties surrounding Tallahassee, and Democrats dominated at the Congressional and state legislative level. In much of the panhandle, outside of the far west end, few Republics ever bothered to even file for local offices.

Through the 1980s, the Florida 2nd Congressional district covered large swaths of North Florida.

The 1990s would see slow declines in Democratic support at the top of the ticket, with Republicans gaining ground in Gubernatorial and Presidential contests. However, on the Congressional level, democrats still dominated. In 1989, FL-02 Democratic Congressman James Grant switched the GOP, but then was defeated by Democrat Peter Peterson in the 1990 contest. The seat changed a bit in the 1992 redistricting process, but largely remained the same panhandle seat. In 1996, Peterson was retiring, and the seat was open.

Early Congressional Elections

Allen Boyd was elected to State House 11 in a 1989 special election. The rural district covered much of the Big Bend and at the time was a deep-blue districts down-ballot. At the time of his election, voter registration in the seat was 47,000 Democrats to 7,000 republicans. Boyd would take 80% of the vote in the special general election; with a primary being the bigger contest.

Boyd opted to run for the open Congressional district, which was also modestly tweaked in 1996 due to mid-decade redistricting. In the fight for the Democratic nomination, Boyd defeated Leon Commissioner Anita Davis, who was the counties first black female commissioner, in the primary. Btw this is a primary I’d to do a precinct map of down the line.

In the general election, Boyd had little trouble holding the district for the Democrats. The seat was 3-1 Registered Democrat over Republican and while it was very much a conservative district, it was, as Bill Cotterell put it in a 1996 CSPAN interview, a Yellow-Dog district. His opponent, Bill Sutton, was a Tallahassee banker who originally hailed from Miami. While Sutton had strong institutional backing, his lack of local ties and the Democratic-lean of the seat made it a solid Boyd win.

Boyd’s only weak point was Bay County, which was by far the least Democratic friendly of the rural panhandle counties within the district. Boyd’s only other major opposition was in the Tallahassee suburbs; which were made up of classic low-tax Republicans.

The same day that Boyd won the race, Bill Clinton would carry the district with a 48% plurality. That win 6.5% margin was closely mirroring the state’s margin.

The gap in Presidential vs Congressional support highlighted the strong down-ballot democratic strength in the region. That same year, even as the GOP took narrow control of the State House, Democrats maintained control of the legislative delegation for the area.

And yes I know these maps look insane, if you want to read the drama of the 1990s redistricting process, go here.

In 1998, Boyd faced no opponent. In 2000, he had a weak and underfunded challenger, which he’d wind up crushing across every county.

That year, the district would vote for George Bush over Al Gore by around 1%. This really highlights the split ticket voting in the area. However, that same day, Bill Nelson would win the district 13%

Nelson, like Boyd, had much more cross-over appeal with rural voters.

Boyd’s huge win did not mean he was immune from the GOP having an eye on taking him out, however.

2002 Gerrymandering Efforts

In the 2001-2002 redistricting process, Republicans had Allen Boyd in their sights. The GOP, in control of all levers of government, had free reign to gerrymander the Congressional map. They drafted their maps to take out Democratic Congresswoman Karen Thurmond, shore-up Republican Clay Shaw, and ensure the two new seats were favoring the GOP.

In the panhandle, the goal for Republicans was to recruit State Comptroller Bob Milligan to run against Boyd. As part of the effort, they tried to weaken the district as best they could. They traded out ancestral Democratic Washington county in the west to add in GOP heavy coastal towns in Walton and Okaloosa. On the east, they cut out several rural democratic counties.

Now the district was going to change a bit regardless, namely taking in all of Bay County. However, the decision to remove parts of Jefferson and Leon were clearly partisan. In addition, Madison and Hamilton had larger black populations than the southern counties like Dixie.

The remap aimed to keep the district rural, but tried to move margins a bit to make it a possible Democratic loss. The data for the final district form did show that while it would still lean democratic down-ballot, there was a notable GOP uptick in recent years.

The trend-line there is pretty clear; as the 1990s came to an end, the Republican position increased in strength. The new lines notably turned the 2nd into a Bush +5 seat. Despite these efforts by the Republican Party, Boyd did not face a serious threat in 2002 or 2004.

In 2002, Milligan did not go forward with a challenge to Boyd. Instead, the GOP put up underfunded Tom McGurk, who was crushed by 33 points in the district. Sorry I don’t have precinct data here… yet.

Boyd’s only weak points were the coastal GOP strongholds of Walton and Okaloosa. Those two counties had no ties to Boyd and were beyond the ancestral democratic strength of the big bend.

In 2004, Boyd faced his arguable toughest opponent in State Rep Bev Kilmer. At the time, Boyd was considering entering the US Senate race after Bob Graham retired. In the end, though, Boyd would run for re-election. While Kilmer was able to raise $1 million and had strong GOP backing, her campaign had several gaffes and struggled to pin Boyd down on any controversies. Despite Bush winning the district 54-45, the race turned out to still be a solid win for Boyd.

While Kilmer managed to weaken Boyd’s margins, and flip Bay County, the results showed that Boyd was going to be tough to dislodge.

Mounting Left Wing Pressure

Part of Boyd’s strength was in his conservative voting record. Republicans consistently found themselves struggling to find a clear line of attack on the Congressman. In 2006, Boyd did not even face an opponent.

However, as a conservative Democrat, supporting Bush efforts on the Iraq War and general social/fiscal conservativism, he began to feel left-wing pressure from Tallahassee voters. An effort to get a Green Party candidate on the ballot in 06 fell short. A true primary threat, however, did not yet materialize. While grumbling did exist, it was also largely understood a conservative was needed for the post.

Boyd also managed to keep his voting record right-of-center, but voted against more far-right bills. Contradictions for Boyd include backing a ban on same-sex marriage but voting against overriding DC allowing Gay Adoption. Boyd also maintained an A rating from the NRA, but voted against weakening wait periods. A more exhaustive look at Boyd’s record can be found here. The short story is that Boyd leaned more conservative than Tallahassee voters would like, but more liberal than any Republican would be if in the seat. His voting would also prove critical in 2009-2010.

In Part 2……

In tomorrow’s edition, I will delve into the Boyd campaign of 2008 and 2010. It will be a story of a landslide re-election, and then the massive fall amid the red wave and a divided Democratic party. Even on his way out of office, however, Boyd would go down with a serious of courageous votes. I will cover that tomorrow.