Florida's+2nd+District+House+of+Representatives+Race

The race for the House of Representatives seat in Florida's second district is between Republican Steve Southerland, and Democratic incumbent Allen Boyd. Boyd has held the seat since 1996, winning six straight elections.

Boyd barely won his party's primary, with only 51% of the vote. He is serving on the House Budget and Appropriations Committee and is a leader of the informal group of moderate Democrats called the Blue Dogs who lobby strongly for fiscal moderation and centrist legislation. Boyd supports pay-as-you-go budgeting, a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, extending all tax cuts, bans on deceptive lending practices. He opposes bailouts for Wall Street funded by taxpayers.

Southerland has never held public office, he is the owner and co-owner of several companies including Southerland Family Funeral Homes. He supports a free market without government intervention, dramatic tax reductions, and protecting Social Security benefits. He is endorsed by Florida's Governor Jeb Bush and the National Right to Life Committee.

The main issues in this race are the economy (Boyd favors pay-as-you-go and Southerland favors federal spending cuts), taxes (Boyd favors extending all tax cuts and Southerland wants to cut taxes even more) and Social Security (Boyd co-sponsered a bill in 2004 to partially privatize Social Security and Southerland wants to maintain the current system without the loss of benefits).

Florida's 2nd District: Population 639, 295 people
 * Median age- 35.1
 * White- 73.4%
 * Black- 22.3%
 * Hispanic- 3.3% (less than 1/4 the national average)
 * Asian- 1.2%
 * Median income lower than national average
 * Urban- 62.1%
 * Rural- 37.9%

Pundits were originally predicting a major win for Allen Boyd, but recently they switched to saying it is a toss-up race and getting closer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20101001/pl_ynews/ynews_pl3787_1 http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/house/florida/2

Polls show Southerland leading Boyd by a margin of 50-38. Boyd's popularity among Democrats has been steadily dropping so that now he has a 37% negative opinion among them. His preivous base of moderate Republicans and Democrats are being drawn to Southerland. Two no-affiliation candidates are running on the ballot as well, Dianne Berryhill and Paul McKain. Both are conservatives and together have about a 5% popularity rate, posing no threat to either candidate except possibly in the votes they take away. However, Southerland's lead is large enough that this would probably not be too much of a problem. Independents tend to vote Democratic in Florida's second district. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhdb6K5nWAU http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/poll-steve-southerland-poised-oust-allen-boyd-cd-2 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/fl/florida_2nd_district_southerland_vs_boyd-1372.html

Allen Boyd votes against the health care reform proposed by the Obama administration in the first round. However, in the second round his vote in support of the bill was a key swing vote in passing it. This piece of legislation is very unpopular with residents of Florida's second district and Steve Southerland's campaign is using his vote as a negative point in TV 'spots' and statements. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLfyDG6FVcg&feature=related

Allen Boyd claims that Steve Southerland did not pay his taxes for five years. The truth is that Southerland always payed his property taxes on time and in full. He also payed all of his business taxes, he just payed the business property taxes late. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVxR43pWGDw&NR=1 http://politifact.com/florida/statements/2010/oct/11/allen-boyd/allen-boyd-campaign-ad-claims-steve-southerland-di/

As of 10:26 on November 2, 2010, Southerland beat out Boyd for the Florida second district seat in the House of Representatives. Southerland took about 54% of the vote to Boyd's 49%, with the two no-affiliation candidates splitting about 5%. Boyd is quoted as having said, "There will be a limited number of times in a career when you will have the opportunity to do something that will have a major positive impact on the lives of the people you represent. The health care legislation will do that. Some will say it cost me this election; if it did, so be it. It was the right thing to do." http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20101102/NEWS03/101102020/Update-Southerland-defeats-Boyd http://www.panhandleparade.com/index.php/mbb/article/southerland_wins_congressional_district_2_seat/mbb7726528/ The above site shows Steve Southerland on 113 news on ABC talking about his election to the House of Representatives, the work ahead of him, and his plans for the next few years.