It looks like you want a bucket sort. Something like this: 

    my %bucket;
    map {push @{$bucket {$_ -> {fld_type}}} => $_} @advocates;
    my @sorted = map {@{$bucket {$_}}} qw /Local State National/;

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Abigail

In reply to Re: Efficiently sorting array by non-alpha strings by Abigail-II
in thread Efficiently sorting array by non-alpha strings by knowmad

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