East Broward Voters Buried Under $1 Million In Mail In Scorched Earth Senate Race
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The bloody battle for state Senate District 34 was fought with roughly 60 mailed advertising flyers from candidates Gary Farmer and Jim Waldman.
Farmer and various political committee’s supporting him sent around 35 pieces in the last months of the campaign, while Waldman and his committees sent approximately 25.
The majority of ads from both campaigns were attacks on their opponent, say voters who received them.
“A lot of my neighbors say they are sick of seeing all this garbage in their mail,” one longtime voter of District 34 told Browardbeat.com.
Farmer was accused of lying during the campaign. He was also criticized for his previous role as a lobbyist and for not paying taxes.
Waldman was attacked for allegedly not being Democratic enough and for lying about Farmer.
This blizzard of mailed ads was aimed at a relatively small group of Democrats who are most likely to vote in tomorrow’s primary – less than 30,000.
The figure for the number of ads — roughly 60 — comes from political insiders in the district who kept the ads and counted them.
There may be even more ads because some mailings don’t reach every voter. Some only target smaller subgroups – LBGTs, elderly, women, Blacks and other demographics.
Although the numbers receiving the ads were a fraction of the Senate District’s 136,000 Democrats, the cost was high. One political consultant not working in the Senate race estimated the price tag at roughly $1 million including postage, production costs and profit to the consultants.
Both campaigns also used cable television and Internet buys, but the mail pieces was the most pervasive effort of the campaigns.
District 34 runs mostly east of Interstate 95 from Deerfield Beach to Hallandale Beach.
The slash and burn campaign for the open seat in the 40-member state Senate has cost the two candidates and their supporters at least $2 million to date. The figure most likely will be higher when all the counting is done.
There is a third Democrat in the primary – state Rep. Gwyndolen Clarke-Reed of Deerfield Beach. She has raised little and spent only $16,000.
Senate District 34 was not the only campaign filling mailboxes this campaign cycle:
Just some of the mailed advertising from Sheriff Scott Israel
- Sheriff Scott Israel, who is widely expected to beat several Democratic opponents, left nothing to chance in his re-election. He mailed at least 10 campaign ads. His cost was presumably higher since he had more voters to reach in his countywide race, but the campaign had more than $1 million to spend.
- U. S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz sent roughly a dozen ads in the last three weeks of her campaign against challenger Tim Canova, who mailed about half that amount in the U. S. House District 23. Canova’s ads mostly attacked Wasserman Schultz, while the congresswoman’s pieces featured her achievements, her support from President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and didn’t mention her opponent.
August 29th, 2016 at 7:55 pm
One mind. Brute force. And full of money…
August 30th, 2016 at 2:38 pm
After getting all that crap, I voted for Gwen…
August 30th, 2016 at 9:40 pm
In total I got over 50 pieces of mail from the Farmer/Waldman race. Absolutely ridiculous
August 31st, 2016 at 10:37 am
Well Gary Farmer running with a pile of money beat the Democratic Establishment including with the NRA vote lie which helped get him the endorsement of the Leftwing groups.
MONEY and LIES…
Says something NOT VERY NICE of Broward voters n their choices.