1994 Florida gubernatorial election

1994 Florida gubernatorial election
November 8, 1994
 
Nominee Lawton Chiles Jeb Bush
Party Democratic Republican
Running mate Buddy MacKay Tom Feeney
Popular vote 2,135,008 2,071,068
Percentage 50.75% 49.23%
Chiles:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90%
Bush:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90%
Tie:      50%      No votes
Governor before election

Lawton Chiles
Democratic

 Elected Governor

Lawton Chiles
Democratic

The 1994 Florida gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1994. Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles was narrowly re-elected to a second term over Republican former Florida commerce secretary Jeb Bush. This race was the second-closest gubernatorial election in Florida history, after the 1876 election, due to the strong Republican wave of 1994. As of 2026, this is the last time a Democrat was elected governor of Florida.

Primary elections were held on September 8. Chiles dispatched a challenge from populist activist Jack Gargan to win the Democratic nomination. Bush won a plurality of the Republican primary vote, with particular strength in Dade County. Although Florida secretary of state James C. Smith finished second and was entitled to challenge Bush in a runoff election, he declined and Bush was certified as the Republican nominee.

Background

Lawton Chiles was eligible to run for a second four-year term under the Constitution of Florida. In late 1991, Chiles's disapproval rating rose significantly after he cut funds for education in his first budget. Around 75 percent of Floridians gave him a fair or poor performance rating.[1] The following year, Chiles's approval rating fell to only 22 percent after the perceptions that the state response to Hurricane Andrew was inadequate.[2] His disapproval rating remained as high as 71 percent into 1993. As a result, some Democrats suggested that U.S. senator Bob Graham run for a third, non-consecutive term as governor.[1]

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declined

Results

Democratic Primary by county
  Chiles
  •   50–60%
  •   60–70%
  •   70–80%
  •   80–90%
  Gargan
  •   50–60%
Democratic primary results[4]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Lawton Chiles (incumbent) 603,657 72.17%
Democratic Jack Gargan 232,757 27.83%
Total votes 836,414 100.00%

Republican primary

Candidates

  • Josephine A. Arnold, Seminole County osteopathic neurologist and candidate for State Senate in 1992[3]
    • Running mate: Bob Brown[3]

Campaign

Ander Crenshaw was dogged by campaign finance issues after his announcement, beginning with a rumor that his campaign had asked donors to postdate checks by months.

Polling

Poll source Date(s)

administered

 Sample

size

 Margin

of error

 Jeb Bush Ander Crenshaw Ken Connor Tom Gallagher Jim Smith Undecided
Mason-Dixon October 7–10, 1993 301 (RV) ± 5.5% 19% 4% 1% 27% 10% 2%

Results

Republican Primary by county
  Bush
  •   30–40%
  •   40–50%
  •   50–60%
  •   70–80%
  Smith
  •   40–50%
Republican primary results[5]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Jeb Bush 411,680 45.68%
Republican Jim Smith 165,869 18.40%
Republican Tom Gallagher 117,067 12.99%
Republican Ander Crenshaw 109,148 12.11%
Republican Kenneth L. Connor 83,945 9.31%
Republican Josephine A. Arnold 8,326 0.92%
Republican Bob Bell 5,202 0.58%
Total votes 901,237 100.00%

A runoff primary election was scheduled to be held between leading candidate Jeb Bush and second-place candidate James C. Smith because no candidate received a majority of the vote. However, Smith dropped out of the race a few days later, leaving Bush as the Republican nominee for governor.

General election

Candidates

Write-in candidates

  • George "G. G." Boone, self-employed carpenter[6] (Independent)
  • Calvin "C. C." Reed, former trucking and moving industry worker[6] (Independent)

Campaign

Bush ran as a political conservative and tried to paint Chiles as beholden to liberal interests. At one point, when asked what he would do for African Americans, Bush responded, "It's time to strive for a society where there's equality of opportunity, not equality of results. So I'm going to answer your question by saying: probably nothing."[7]

The final weeks of the campaign was described as "one of the nastiest in Florida political history."[8]

On the day before the election, the Chiles campaign called about 70,000 Floridians in a get out the vote effort. Their calls alleged that Bush was a "tax cheat" and that his running mate Tom Feeney planned to destroy Social Security, and the callers falsely attributed these claims to "tax fairness" and senior citizen advocacy organizations. Chiles denied authorizing the phone calls but still later apologized when the media discovered top officials in his campaign had authorized them. When the Florida legislature investigated the calls, Chiles claimed he was "out of the loop."[1][9]

Polling

Polling for the 1994 Florida Gubernatorial Election
Opinion poll source Date Lawton
Chiles (D)		 Jeb
Bush (R)
Associated Industries of Florida[10] Nov. 3-4, 1994 48% 43%
Mason-Dixon Nov. 1-3, 1994 48% 45%
The New York Times Oct. 30-Nov. 3, 1994 47% 41%
Orlando Sentinel Nov. 1, 1994 48% 45%
Associated Industries of Florida[10] Oct. 30, 1994 45% 45%
St. Petersburg Times Oct. 16, 1994 39% 49%
Mason-Dixon Oct. 7, 1994 43% 48%
Mason-Dixon Sep. 1-3, 1994 43% 48%
Mason-Dixon Aug. 1-3, 1994 44% 41%
Mason-Dixon July 1–3, 1994 46% 35%
Mason-Dixon Feb. 1-3, 1994 42% 38%
Mason-Dixon Oct. 1-3, 1993 41% 32%

Debates

1994 Florida gubernatorial debates
No. Date Host Moderator Link Democratic Republican
Key:

 P  Participant   A  Absent   N  Not invited   I  Invited  W  Withdrawn
Lawton Chiles Jeb Bush
1 Oct. 4, 1994 WLRN-TV

Miami Herald Florida Economic Development Council

 David Lawrence

John Anderson Jim Breitenseld Tom Fielder

 [11] P P
2 Oct. 18, 1994 Politics in the Park N/A [12] P P
3 Nov. 1, 1994 NBC Florida affiliates

League of Women Voters

 Tim Russert [13] P P

On October 18, a debate was broadcast by 36 radio stations from at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Bush and Chiles stood behind two lecterns decorated with Mickey Mouse ears.[14]

On November 1, another debate between Bush and Chiles was conducted by the League of Women Voters of Florida at Tampa Performing Arts Center. Early in the debate, Chiles again criticized Bush's ad about the death penalty, stating that Bush had outdone his father's ad about Willie Horton and saying "You knew [the ad] was false. You admitted it was false. And I am ashamed that you would use the loss of a mother in an ad like this." Later, during a discussion about school vouchers, Chiles quipped "My mama told me, 'sticks and stones will break my bones,' but names will never hurt me. But let me tell you one other thing about the old liberal. The old He-Coon walks just before the light of day." This referenced Chiles' Florida cracker roots, and served as a deliberate contrast with the more urbane Bush.[15]

Campaign finance

Throughout the campaign, Bush raised approximately $7 million, more than half of which came from fundraisers featuring his parents and out-of-state fundraisers sponsored by his family and friends. On each of Barbara and George H. W. Bush's visits to Florida, they raked in about $1 million for the campaign.[16] Chiles limited contributions to $100 per person and raised $6.23 million, which included $2 million in public money.[1]

Results

Chiles prevailed against Bush by about 1.52 percent of the vote. Amid the Republican Revolution of 1994, Chiles was one of two Democratic governors to win close races to hold their seat that night, along with Zell Miller of neighboring Georgia. However, Republicans gained control of the Florida Senate for the first time in over a century, U.S. senator Connie Mack III was reelected to a second term in a landslide, and Republicans won races for Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Commissioner of Education. A statewide ballot initiative to legalize casino gambling was defeated with only 38 percent of the vote.[17][18]

In comparison with the 1990 election, Chiles performed significantly worse in North and Central Florida.

Florida gubernatorial election, 1994[19]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic Lawton Chiles (incumbent) 2,135,008 50.75% −5.76%
Republican Jeb Bush 2,071,068 49.23% +5.75%
Write-in 583 0.0% 0%
Majority 63,940 1.52% −11.51%
Turnout 4,206,659
Democratic hold Swing

By county

Chiles again won with a "Dixie–Dade strategy," winning both rural, conservative Dixie County and urban Dade County, home of Miami. Chiles also carried the other two major urban South Florida counties, Broward and Palm Beach. Although he lost several counties in the Panhandle which he had won in 1990, including his native Polk County, Chiles' largest margin of victory was in Gadsden County, the only plurality African American county in Florida.

Bush received his highest shares of the vote in several northern rural counties, especially Baker, Clay, and Union counties.

County Chiles% Chiles# Bush% Bush# Others% Others# Total#
Alachua 61.8% 35,030 38.2% 21,624 0% 7 56,661
Baker 31.5% 1,654 68.5% 3,600 0% 0 5,254
Bay 43.1% 17,816 56.9% 23,498 0% 2 41,316
Bradford 37.1% 2,642 62.9% 4,470 0% 0 7,112
Brevard 46.6% 72,393 53.4% 82,878 0% 6 155,277
Broward 65.4% 261,368 34.6% 138,333 0% 11 399,712
Calhoun 50.5% 1,811 49.5% 1,775 0% 0 3,586
Charlotte 46.3% 24,159 53.7% 27,965 0% 0 52,124
Citrus 49.3% 20,094 50.7% 20,633 0% 5 40,732
Clay 29.1% 9,986 70.9% 24,290 0% 1 34,276
Collier 38.6% 22,860 61.4% 36,370 0% 0 59,230
Columbia 41.6% 5,288 58.3% 7,408 0% 0 12,696
DeSoto 45.6% 2,856 54.4% 3,407 0% 0 6,263
Dixie 50.2% 2,003 49.7% 1,981 0% 5 3,989
Duval 42.5% 80,945 57.2% 108,900 0% 471 190,316
Escambia 42.2% 33,210 57.7% 45,261 0% 1 78,472
Flagler 52.6% 7,954 47.4% 7,160 0% 0 15,114
Franklin 66.6% 2,636 33.4% 1,324 0% 0 3,960
Gadsden 69.4% 7,751 30.6% 3,422 0% 0 11,173
Gilchrist 47.0% 1,701 53.0% 1,922 0% 0 3,623
Glades 51.4% 1,387 48.6% 1,310 0% 0 2,697
Gulf 56.7% 3,060 43.3% 2,339 0% 0 5,399
Hamilton 50.4% 1,453 49.6% 1,429 0% 0 2,882
Hardee 50.4% 2,695 49.6% 2,649 0% 1 5,345
Hendry 44.2% 2,623 55.8% 3,308 0% 0 5,931
Hernando 50.8% 25,331 49.2% 24,532 0% 0 49,863
Highlands 45.7% 12,323 54.3% 14,617 0% 1 26,940
Hillsborough 48.6% 117,974 51.4% 124,561 0% 11 242,546
Holmes 42.0% 2,134 58.0% 2,942 0% 0 5,076
Indian River 44.3% 16,410 55.7% 20,630 0% 0 37,040
Jackson 46.9% 5,907 53.1% 6,698 0% 0 12,605
Jefferson 61.3% 2,575 38.7% 1,625 0% 0 4,200
Lafayette 45.9% 936 54.1% 1,105 0% 0 2,041
Lake 49.5% 29,797 50.5% 30,394 0% 0 60,191
Lee 43.8% 58,785 56.2% 75,365 0% 0 134,150
Leon 63.4% 47,323 36.6% 27,265 0% 1 74,589
Levy 51.5% 4,588 48.5% 4,322 0% 0 8,910
Liberty 49.0% 947 51.0% 985 0% 0 1,932
Madison 54.3% 2,564 45.7% 2,161 0% 1 4,726
Manatee 49.1% 40,473 50.9% 41,915 0% 0 82,388
Marion 44.7% 31,345 55.3% 38,784 0% 1 70,129
Martin 45.1% 20,706 54.9% 25,239 0% 0 45,945
Miami-Dade 52.0% 215,276 48.0% 198,371 0% 1 413,648
Monroe 56.7% 13,232 43.3% 10,086 0% 1 23,319
Nassau 34.8% 5,331 65.2% 9,968 0% 0 15,299
Okaloosa 34.3% 16,459 65.7% 31,459 0% 0 47,918
Okeechobee 49.6% 3,492 50.4% 3,545 0% 0 7,037
Orange 48.0% 85,098 52.0% 92,096 0% 0 177,194
Osceola 45.3% 15,292 54.7% 18,437 0% 1 33,730
Palm Beach 61.3% 198,638 38.7% 125,208 0% 3 323,849
Pasco 52.4% 57,597 47.6% 52,418 0% 5 110,020
Pinellas 51.0% 166,858 49.0% 160,115 0% 7 326,980
Polk 47.9% 58,364 52.5% 65,415 0% 0 123,779
Putnam 39.8% 9,658 52.1% 10,505 0% 0 20,163
Santa Rosa 36.6% 11,726 63.4% 20,345 0% 4 32,075
Sarasota 47.4% 60,770 52.6% 67,531 0% 0 128,301
Seminole 44.3% 39,324 55.7% 49,387 0% 1 88,712
St. Johns 36.7% 12,791 63.3% 22,036 0% 0 34,827
St. Lucie 50.5% 27,956 49.5% 27,436 0% 0 55,392
Sumter 51.1% 5,603 48.9% 5,360 0% 1 10,964
Suwanee 43.7% 3,935 56.3% 5,064 0% 0 8,999
Taylor 49.6% 2,979 50.4% 3,024 0% 0 6,003
Union 28.2% 791 71.8% 2,009 0% 0 2,800
Volusia 53.2% 66,614 46.8% 58,632 0% 34 125,280
Wakulla 59.7% 3,696 40.3% 2,492 0% 0 6,188
Walton 43.8% 5,067 56.2% 6,493 0% 0 11,560
Washington 47.8% 2,968 52.2% 3,240 0% 0 6,208

Aftermath

Phonegate

After the election, the controversial phone calls were labeled "Phonegate." Bill Cotterell of the Tallahassee Democrat believed that the phone calls did not affect the result of the election, arguing, "I'm quite sure you know, at least half of them just hung up, never even listened to the message. And those who did probably said, well, that's ridiculous, the governor of Florida ... or the lieutenant governor of Florida can't repeal Social Security." Miami Herald writer Mark Silva also argued that the phone calls did not impact the outcome of the election, saying, "[the] campaign was won before that happened. The idea that that somehow tipped the election was a canard, it wasn't true." In November 1995, Bush campaign manager Mac Stipanovich claimed, "[I]t's quite possible the Chiles campaign stole the election by fraud". Bush himself refused to speculate on the impact of the phone calls.[1]

In December 1995, Chiles became the first modern Florida governor to testify under oath before a state legislative committee, the Senate Committee on Executive Business, Ethics, and Elections. Chiles testified that he had no knowledge of the calls and apologized to any Floridians who may have been misled. Eventually, the opposition to Chiles was reduced to state senator Charlie Crist. Later, the Republican legislature passed a law banning false attributions for get out the vote calls, which Chiles signed. Chiles remained governor until suffering a fatal heart attack on December 12, 1998, less than a month before his second term expired.[1]

Impact on Bush's presidential ambitions

Bush had originally planned on running for president of the United States in 2000. However, because he lost this election while his brother, George W. Bush, was elected governor of Texas on the same night, George ran for president in 2000.[15] Although Jeb Bush was elected governor in 1998 and easily reelected in 2002,[15][20] his only campaign for president resulted in his defeat in the 2016 primaries by Donald Trump.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 John Dos Passos Coggin (November 20, 2012). Walkin' Lawton. Cocoa, Florida: The Florida Historical Society Press. pp. 323–324, 386. ISBN 978-1886104587.
  2. ↑ Marc Caputo (May 25, 2011). "Poll: Rick Scott one of the nation's least popular governors". Tampa Bay Times. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 By (September 4, 1994). "GOVERNOR". Sun Sentinel. Retrieved August 19, 2026.
  4. ↑ "Florida Department of State - Election Results". Archived from the original on July 18, 2011. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  5. ↑ Florida Department of State – Election Results
  6. 1 2 "Governor". Sun-Sentinel. November 6, 1994. Archived from the original on October 3, 2015. Retrieved October 2, 2015.
  7. ↑ Joel Aberbach; Gillian Peele (2011). Crisis of Conservatism?: The Republican Party, the Conservative Movement, and American Politics After Bush. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 189. ISBN 9780199831364.
  8. ↑ Mike Williams (November 13, 1994). "Mudslinging campaign tarnishes Chiles' easy-going image". Tallahassee, Florida: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. p. 4. Retrieved October 3, 2015.
  9. ↑ "When Push Comes to Poll".
  10. 1 2 Tim Nickens; Terry Neal; Mark Silva (November 5, 1994). "Chiles Pushes Past Bush in the Latest Poll". Miami Herald. pp. 5B.
  11. ↑ C-SPAN
  12. ↑ C-SPAN
  13. ↑ C-SPAN
  14. ↑ "The 1994 Campaign: Florida; Governor and Jeb Bush Debate, Exchanging Taunts and Claims of Distorting Truth". The New York Times. Orlando, Florida. October 19, 1994. Retrieved October 3, 2015.
  15. 1 2 3 Steve Kornacki (April 25, 2014). "The He-Coon who changed Jeb Bush's political career". MSNBC. Retrieved October 2, 2015.
  16. ↑ Robert E. Crew Jr. (December 2, 2009). Jeb Bush: Aggressive Conservatism in Florida. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. p. 7. ISBN 9780761849841. Retrieved October 3, 2015.
  17. ↑ Fernandez, John (November 9, 1994). "$16 million ad blitz fails to sway voters (Part 1)". The Palm Beach Post. p. 1. Retrieved September 7, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  18. ↑ Fernandez, John (November 9, 1994). "Pro-casino group pledges return in '96 (Part 2)". The Palm Beach Post. p. 9. Retrieved September 7, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  19. ↑ "Florida Department of State - Election Results". Archived from the original on July 18, 2011. Retrieved March 26, 2011.
  20. ↑ Dana Canedy (November 7, 2002). "The 2002 Elections: Florida; Bush Looks to 2nd Term As Analysts Point to 2004". The New York Times. Miami, Florida. Retrieved October 2, 2015.
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