Who will win the special election in state House District 72? Answering that with confidence requires an elusive level of arrogance, but data indicates nobody’s running away with this contest quite yet. A survey from StPetePolls.org this week offered the most recent indication this contest will be a dead heat until the last voters cast ballots Feb. 13.

The bottom line from StPetePolls is that Republican James Buchanan is winning—barely. The phone poll of 714 likely voters (including 330 Republicans and 244 Democrats) calculated 49.1 percent support for Buchanan, 46.1 percent for Democrat Margaret Good, 3.2 percent for Libertarian Alison Foxall and 1.6 percent undecided. That 3-percent break between Buchanan and Good falls within the margin of error.

But Democrats say the more important result in the poll may be isolated data on respondents claiming they already voted by absentee ballot. Among these early bird voters, 56.6 percent supported Good while just 39.5 percent backed Buchanan. By that measure, even if Buchanan has an edge with the public at large, he’ll only win if his supporters can find the motivation to fill in his name on a ballot sometime in the next few weeks.

That’s what makes special elections so dicey. Ballots have one contest on them. Nobody who’s already at the polls to support Donald Trump or Rick Scott or Bill Nelson or Hillary Clinton will look down and say “I may as well vote for somebody in that House race.” If people don’t have strong emotions who should hold this seat, they’re more likely to binge a new Netflix series than to dig up that ballot that came in the mail with all those nauseating attack ads.

And Democrats talk a good game all around. Good, after a few stumbles like declining a televised debate with her primary opponent, has canvassed hard. Pulling in 72,4 percent of the Democratic vote in the December primary showed she had the support of the left-leaning electorate, and donors from across the state noticed. That led to a rather shocking $106,831 haul in donations to her House campaign in the December fundraising period. And as of Jan. 4, Good was the candidate with the most cash on hand.

Buchanan, meanwhile, has lacked a little in public presence. Part of that is he had no primary at all, though missing the chance to divide his base into warring factions is hardly a bad thing. His campaign initially announced he would skip debates and forums with opponents, though he’s recently backpedaled on that. But don't write the Republican off just yet. He still raised the most money overall. While his December haul of $55,500 in donations was just over half that of Good’s, that’s partly because he tapped donors much earlier. He’s still raised the most money, $282,630 in donations as of Jan. 4, compared to Good’s grand total of $227,314.

Incidentally, Foxall’s strident third party bid shouldn’t be ignored. She’s pulled in $14,577, more than any Libertarian state House candidate in Florida history. It would take a lot of major party distaste for her to convert that into a victory, but she’s got better resources than anyone before her.

At the end of the day, the election won’t come down to dollars or a sample of voters who picked up the phone for an automated survey. As of mid-day Friday, the Sarasota Supervisor of Elections had already collected 16,222 mail-in ballots, likely a majority of the votes that will be cast. We don't know yet who anyone voted for, though we know those ballots include 7,368 from registered Republicans, 7,008 from Democrats and 16 from Libertarians. This one will be a photo finish.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor for SRQ Media Group.