Voters in District 13 will head to the polls today for a special primary.

And initial indications are that turnout will be higher than usual.  As of 2 p.m. Tuesday the combined turnout from today and early voting is about 20.5 percent.

That may because this is the first part of a process to replace longtime congressman C.W. Bill Young, who died in October.

Three Republicans are squaring off to determine who will move on to the general election in March. That election will be held to fill the seat Young held from 1971 to 2013.

The candidates are David Jolly, Kathleen Peters and Mark Bircher.

Jolly, the son of a pastor from Dunedin, started working for Rep. Young after college. Over 20 years, he became one of Young’s closest aides and his general council.

A state representative, Peters is a 30-year Pinellas County resident who started her political career with the South Pasadena's planning and zoning board, the city commission and then served as mayor of South Pasadena.

Bircher is a retired Marine with nearly 40 years of service and a former Blue Angel. Currently, he works as an attorney and commercial airline pilot.

The winner of Tuesday's special election will take on Democrat Alex Sink and Libertarian Lucas Overby in the general election March 11.

Sink joined volunteers and supporters Tuesday at a phone bank at her campaign headquarters

For a general election, Pinellas County has 455,000 registered voters that could potentially cast a ballot. But because this is a special primary to choose a Republican candidate, only about 170,000 registered Republicans will have the opportunity to vote.

Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said turnout for this special primary so far, is surprisingly high.

"The average turnout for special primaries is about 10 percent," Clark said. "And we’re almost at 19 percent turnout already, between early voting and mail-in ballots returned.

"So I think our voters are showing more interest than maybe voters usually show in a situation like this. There’s been a lot more participation, and I think those numbers will go up a few points."


Florida's 13th congressional district is an electoral district for the U.S. Congress and was reassigned in 2012, effective January 2013, to just Pinellas County.

The 13th district includes an area from Dunedin to western and northern St. Petersburg.