To get elected Mayor of Pensacola, Mike Wiggins and Ashton Hayward will need between 10,000 to 15,000 votes, based on the voter turnout over the last three elections.
2008 Presidential Election Year: 82.3%
2006 Non-Presidential Year: 54.5%
2004 Presidential Election Year: 79.2%
If the turnover matches the high of 2008, then Mayor will need 14,941 votes to win. If the turnout is lower, which is probably more realistic, the winner will need 9,894 votes.
Wiggins got 4,806 votes in the Aug. 24 primary, so he needs to get between 5,088-10,135 more votes to win. Hayward is in the 5,534-10,581 range.
While Bare’s 1,765 votes could be helpful if he delivered all of them to Wiggins, they definitely aren’t enough to put Wiggins over the top. Diane Mack got 2,054 votes, which puts her endorsement only slightly more valuable than Bare’s. It’s unrealistic to think any one candidate can throw all his/her votes to Hayward or Wiggins. Since these voting blocks represent a rejection of the status quo, it’s more likely Hayward, the challenger, will get more of them than Wiggins.
Both the Hayward and Wiggins’ camps will have to get out the vote and attract a large part of the City population that didn’t care enough to vote for them in the primary. Wiggins, the sitting mayor and long-time council member, has to overcome the fact that more than three out of five voters voted against him in the primary.
Wiggins has to hope that the 5,000-10,000 City voters that passed on the primary are satisfied with his two years as mayor and will vote for him in November.