Florida House Seat: David Jolly wins GOP primary, media ignores Libertarian Lucas Overby
Candidate David Jolly will be the Republican nominee in a special election to fill a vacant House seat in Florida that was held by Republican Bill Young for years. The media quickly has drilled down the election to two candidates with “A or B” options on most issues, ignoring the viable third party candidate: Libertarian Lucas Overby.
“Jolly will now face Alex Sink….” was the announcement on Clear Channel’s 970am, the largest talk radio station in the Tampa Bay area.
“Jolly, Sink will have a lot to prove” is the Tampabay.com headline mentioning “Libertarian Lucas Overby has also qualified for the general election ballot” but never including Overby in any of the discussion on issues.
The Miami Herald article was similar, omitting Overby beyond one sentence, but only discussed Alex Sink 8 times.
No one would expect CNN, US News to include the third party candidate and they did not. The AP story (which runs on other big outlets like Huffington Post) omits Overby’s name entirely noting that:
“Jolly will face Democrat Alex Sink, Florida’s former chief financial officer, and a Libertarian candidate in the March 11 general election.”
[…] The article by the Tampa Bay Times didn’t always explain the complete stance by Alex Sink or David Jolly, but each topic was discussed with Overby. Moreover, the general media of the campaign overlooked Overby – read more details here. […]