Since the District 5 special call election, there has been much said about the low turnout. Fingers pointed at the residents of D5 as if they don’t care enough about the city to come out to vote. No doubt there will be those that say the only reason Council Member Naya Young was elected was because of low turnout. News flash—the same number of people voted in the special call election that voted during the regular D5 election in 2023. There were 5,122 votes cast in the 2025 run-off with 11.46% turnout. In 2023 Henderson beat Gudes 2,618 to 2,538 for a total of 5,122. The only difference was 43 write-in votes cast in 2023. Citywide turnout in the March 7,2023 election was 13.65%. The April 25,2023 run-off turnout was 10.76%.

The previous election, March 5, 2019, with an open mayoral seat, turnout was 20.56%. The run-off the following April turnout was 23.2% with Mayor Castor elected with 38,859 votes out of 230,193 eligible voters. In 2015 with Buckhorn running unopposed, turnout was 12.78%. And the last really contested mayoral election, March of 2011, turnout was 22.09%. The subsequent runoff, Bob Buckhorn was elected with 26,708 votes out of 190,629 registered voters.

By comparison, county wide turnout for the 2024 general election was 79.17%. 2022 midterms county wide turnout was 52.43% and in 2020 county wide turnout was 76.77%. The 2012 general election, 72.92%. Without crunching the numbers it’s easy to think turnout in those election within the city was higher.

So can we dispense with the notion that this runoff or D5 was some anomaly?

What’s the solution? Council member Luis Viera thought the solution was to move municipal elections to even years. He went as far as proposing a charter amendment which failed to get a majority of council support. St. Petersburg took that step and will be holding their municipal elections next year along with the governor and legislative elections.

Another possible option would be to move city elections to the fall. Having city wide elections 4 months after the midterms might have made sense 75 years ago, but for this voter it doesn’t. People are conditioned to vote in the fall. Seattle and New York City are both having elections this week. Details might need to be worked out over a non-partisan election vs a primary vs a run-off but they’re just that—details.

Ultimately it comes down to educating the electoral and civic engagement. For some of the 20% who vote, they’re happy picking who runs the city. They’d prefer municipal elections are their little secret; where someone can get elected to a citywide seat appealing to a targeted constituency.

What ever the solution, it’s not something that can happen overnight. Council will be having a workshop to finalize details for the Charter Review Commission next week. Anything proposed would go before the voters in March of 2027. What kind of turnout will the next mayor and council see? That’s going to be up to us.

All data referenced is from the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.