A poll on X, formerly Twitter, of all things, sparked the latest round of drama and intrigue in the Tallahassee City Commission Seat 2 race.
The Leon County Democratic Party, chaired by Ryan Ray, posted a poll on the platform Tuesday asking whether Twitter-users were supporting the incumbent, City Commissioner Curtis Richardson , or his challenger, former City Commissioner Dot Inman-Johnson . Both are lifelong Democrats.
On Thursday, Ray, who also serves as City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow’s aide, pulled the poll down. The results — which Ray said were manipulated — showed Richardson getting a lopsided 93% of the vote in the poll.
Ray said a screenshot of the survey, showing it got 552 votes but only 254 views, was proof that it was phony. He pointed to another Democratic Party X poll from September showing Inman-Johnson with 86% support. That poll had 818 views and 63 votes.
“That clearly was an indication that the results were fraudulent and had been manipulated by some of the infamous Twitter bot behavior that’s become very prevalent on the platform,” Ray said. “So that’s why I took it down.”