David Jolly Wins Special Election

In a stunning final special election result from Florida on Tuesday, AGC PAC-supported candidate David Jolly (R), upset favored candidate Alex Sink (D). The campaign's conclusion carries national implications.  Mr. Jolly won the race 48.5 - 46.6 percent, with 4.8 percent going to Libertarian Party nominee Lucas Overby. The Republican victory margin was 3,456 votes from a huge total of 183,627 ballots cast. The seat was vacant due to the death of 43-year congressional veteran Bill Young (R) who passed away last October, just days after announcing that he would not seek re-election in 2014. The Affordable Care Act was front and center throughout the contest, with Jolly touting his opposition to the program and Sink relying on a catch phrase of "keeping what's right [with the healthcare program] and fixing what's wrong". Her argument, before a Sunshine State congressional district with the sixth largest segmentation of people (in Florida) over 65 years of age (22.8 percent), apparently fell upon largely disbelieving ears. By all accounts, this is a damaging loss for the Democrats. Though Sink and her outside allies tried to swing the discussion to Medicare and Social Security, they failed to do so and Obamacare became the campaign's determinative issue. Failing to win in a district that is trending Democratic with their best possible candidate could lend credence to a Republican argument that this outcome is a harbinger of election results to come later in the year. With the Jolly victory, the House now stands at 233 Republicans and 199 Democrats with three vacancies, two of which were previously Democratic. The Democrats missed a critical conversion opportunity that would have lowered the net number of seats needed to secure the majority to sixteen. The result underscores that the Republicans are better positioned to gain seats in the 2014 regular election than are their Democratic counterparts. For more information, please contact David Ahsinoff at (202) 547-5013 or ahsinoffd@agc.org.