With the early and absentee vote totals already being announced, the Hillsborough County transportation tax is losing big time, 59%-41%.
No doubt conservative voters, strongly anti-tax for the most part, account for many of those early votes, although as Hillsborough County Democratic party chair Pat Kemp said today, the Dems had actually caught up with Republicans in the early voting in Hillsborough.
The early analysis was that the tax would win inside of Tampa, and have a harder time in the outlying parts of the county, especially in the east and southern parts of Hillsborough. But CL observed a meeting last week in Seminole Heights in Tampa, where there were a few NIMBY-like grumblings expressed by those in attendance. Transit supporters have hyped how bus service would be increased dramatically and rather rapidly if the measure passed, but several members of the audience said they didn't like the behavior of those who currently use the bus, and weren't up for more of that in the future.
We'll update this page later.