Politics
Push Polls and Playbooks: How Team Hofberger Is Trying to Sink Joe Vinson
A biased “survey” in District 4 follows a familiar pattern, and it’s a world apart from the clean poll Jon Fay’s campaign just ran in House District 2.
Team Ashlee Hofberger conducted a push poll in District 4, where the two-term District 4 county commissioner is running for re-election in November. Her opponent is No Party Affiliation (NPA) candidate Joe Vinson.
What’s a push poll? A push poll is a manipulative political campaign technique disguised as a legitimate opinion survey. It uses biased or false information framed as questions to sway voters against an opponent, rather than to measure genuine public opinion.
The Hofberger push poll asked voters:
- Ashlee Hofberger is endorsed by law enforcement and first responders. How positive is your opinion of her leadership on public safety?
- How important is it to you that Escambia County’s budget achieve the rollback rate to deliver real property tax relief for families and homeowners?
- Would you be concerned about supporting a candidate running as No Party Affiliation if he held democratic socialist views?
- If the election were today, would you vote for conservative Republican Ashlee Hofberger or left-leaning NPA candidate Joe Vinson?
- Do you believe your tax dollars should go to charities?
The Pattern
The push poll landed one week after a “news” website published the article “Is Independent Escambia County Candidate Joe Vinson Really a Democratic Socialist?”
It’s not the campaign’s first swing at an opponent. Text messages show that during the debate over who would become the county’s next library director, Hofberger and her former aide, Melanie Luna, participated in a smear campaign to damage the reputation of the candidate unanimously recommended for the job — who happens to be Vinson’s wife. Luna resigned in late May, and Hofberger’s pick for the position, Christal Bell-Rivera, resigned this month.
In the 2024 GOP primary, a PAC tied to Hofberger sent out a mailer that darkened the face of her opponent, Walker Wilson, and slammed him for being a friend of Commissioner Lumon May and accused Wilson, a lifelong Republican, of being part of “the Democratic machine.”
Another Poll
While Team Hofberger was trashing Vinson, the campaign for Florida House District 2 Republican contender Jon Fay also ran a poll. His questions:
- How likely are you to vote in the November 3, 2026 General Election?
- If the election for Florida State House District 2 were held today, who would you vote for?
- Have you heard of the following candidates?
- How certain are you of your choice?
- If undecided: Even though you are undecided, which candidate do you currently lean toward?
- What is your overall opinion of Jon Fay?
- What is your overall opinion of Johnny Austin Thompson?
- Which ONE issue should be the highest priority for the next State Representative from District 2?
- Regardless of your own choice, thinking about the voters who live in your neighborhood, which candidate do you expect most of them to vote for in the upcoming election?
- Overall, do you think Florida is: Right Track, Wrong Track, Not Sure?
- Compared with one year ago, would you say your household’s financial situation is…?
- Regardless of how you are officially registered to vote, how do you personally identify politically?
- Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President?
- What is your age?
- How do you describe your gender?
A decent poll that doesn’t trash Fay’s opponent, Johnny Austin Thompson, and instead provides useful information for Fay’s campaign.
Both Ashlee Hofberger and Jon Fay are heavily favored to win. However, the paths they’re taking to get there are very different.
If the citizenry has any chance of forcing a fix on the disastrous government at all levels that is wrecking more people’s lives every day, voters have *got* to pry free from the vise grip of political parties and their ineffective, out-of-touch platforms. Stop worrying about R’s and D’s everybody! Vote the PERSON.
Area RECs and Florida GOP are clearly freaking out about this D4 commissioner race, as they should be. People have been assuring me since I got involved in Escambia politics that “an NPA can’t win in Escambia County.” My response has always been that Escambia has never had the right NPA candidate run.
I don’t believe that Hofberger has such a commanding lead in this race. She has an absolutely horrible reputation, and what support she has looks to be manufactured by money men on Pensacola Beach and Downtown, and rests heavy on the worst of the Kool-Aid conspiracy MAGA cult.
Sure, Salzman & Co will do their typical best/worst to try to push her over the finish line–and no doubt gift fawning admirers with some of their ugliest performances yet–but that toxic brand has degenerated from simply stale to downright rancid in many circles and corners. And Salzman is probably way more worried about where her fresh sources of graft will come from (currently she is working the VA non profits quite nicely) than where Ashlee comes up with hers.
Moreover, Joe Vinson is the right person, with the right principles and background, at the right time to take the leadership reins and undo the mess Hofberger has made. Not to mention restore Robert Bender’s legacy of decency and reasonableness in that seat. The constituents of D4 will never have a better chance for better leadership, and surely there are enough clear-eyed voters to see through Hofberger’s con and install someone who actually has the community’s well being in mind, rather than Ashlee’s cosplaying and status seeking.
The whole of the County’s betterment hangs on that hope. Electing Joe Vinson brings the possibility of a legislator who has the history, the knowledge, and the good intentions to make the right choices in hiring staff and placing appointees who carry his same weight of good will for District 4 constituents and Escambia County citizens. Not a Barbie socialite coalition for a select few data-centering, port-polluting, hotel-stuffing puppet masters.
On August 22nd, I had a shocking experience meeting Grant Hofberger out campaigning for his wife Ashlee Hofberger. I was talking to a neighbor and we wondered whose Range Rover was parked in the cul-de-sac near her home. I saw a man going house-to-house across the park with political palm cards in his hand. I had no idea who he was. As he approached and got within about 50 feet of us I yelled out asking if he was a candidate or canvassing for a candidate. He said his wife was a candidate. When he got to us I asked for a palm card. He never told me his name and I never told him mine so I was a total stranger to him. I very politely told Mr. Hofberger that I did know his wife Ashlee and was supporting Joe Vinson mostly but not entirely because of her key role in the library scandal. (I’m also upset about her recent last minute effort to hijack the county budget process.) Unexpectedly, Mr. Hofberger launched into very personal attacks of both Joe Vinson and his wife Bradley Vinson to include their lack of morale values. He emphasized that his wife Ashlee was a good Christian woman inferring the Vinson’s are bad people. Mr. Hofberger mentioned the church where the Vinson family attends services. Why? Mr. Vinson told me “Ashlee would never have voted for someone like Bradley Vinson.” Never? I reminded Mr. Hofberger that the motion before the BCC on March 5th had nothing to do with Bradley Vinson and was only to accept or reject County Administrator Moreno’s recommendation to ignore the recommendation of the library board. Mr. Hofberger told me that all of the commissioners had voted to reject the appointment of Bradley Vinson. I told him that was not true. I asked why if his wife Ashlee had such strong negative feelings about the morale character of Bradley Vinson she didn’t raise them during the BCC meeting on March 5th? Mr. Hofberger said that Ashlee “didn’t want to make it personal.” I told Mr. Hofberger that it is hard to think of anything more personal than for his wife Ashlee to sabotage the library director selection process to give the job to her unqualified best friend (Christal Bell-Rivera) rather than the most qualified applicant (Bradley Vinson). Mr. Hofberger also instructed me on multiple legal matters related to county government to include the process for selecting the library director. He said that Commissioner May is going to make a change so the BCC no longer votes to confirm the appointment of the library director. (I told him state law requires the BCC to do it.) “Every” single thing that Mr. Hofberger said was wrong. In better news, this past Saturday Joe Vinson was out knocking on doors introducing himself around Scenic Heights. I gave my wife Yvonne one of Joe’s palm cards. She was impressed with it and said he seemed like a wonderful family man who cared very much about the community. All true. There is now a Vinson sign on our lawn and three on nearby lawns. I am told that two people who let Grant Hofberger put his wife’s signs in their lawns on August 22nd took them down on August 29th after meeting Joe Vinson and replaced the Hofberger signs with Vinson signs. One friend said a woman out canvassing for Hofberger knocked on her door. She told that person, “No, No!” and told her to go away. A few days ago, the neighbor present when Mr. Hofberger blew a gasket asked me how she could change from Republican to Independent, i.e. No Party Affiliation or Non-Partisan. I told her to call the Supervisor of Elections. I need to tell her that Ashlee Hofberger also voted to change the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.”
Well, if I needed a reason to vote for Joe Vinson and to question these nasty political games, consider me officially sold. If you think the electorate can’t see what’s happening, you’re seriously underestimating them, Ashleeeeee.
Is it safe to say Rick is on Team Vinson and is using his platform to help the campaign?
“Push polls” are one of the oldest dirty tricks in politics. Instead of making real claims that require proof, they use hypothetical questions to plant seeds of distrust under the guise of an objective survey. Notice in this case, the pollster identified me as the NPA candidate while asking if the respondent “would be concerned about supporting a candidate running as No Party Affiliation (NPA) if he held Democrat socialist views.”
This is classic identity politics — trying to associate me with national ideological labels to create distraction and division. While my coalition of supporters runs the full political spectrum, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats, the fact is I’m a lifelong independent. This doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions on national issues. Rather, it means that at the local level, I think we all want basically the same thing: ethical public servants who are committed to clean, open government.
Push polls are neither clean nor open, which is why my campaign will not use them. I intend to win this election by demonstrating how we can make Escambia County stronger, not by engaging in cheap smears or dirty tricks. Thank you for your attention to this matter!