Want to know our biggest chance at surprising the world? Look south to Joe Garcia's campaign to take the 25th. The presumptive Democratic nominee gave Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart enough of a scare in 2008 that Mario is running to his big brother's district next door to seek re-election in friendlier territory. In an anti-incumbent year and an R+5 district, we'd probably be better off fighting Diaz-Balart than Republican hopeful David Rivera, but lucky for us, Rivera has been a terrible candidate.
The biggest issue is probably his foreclosure connection to Marco Rubio. That story has statewide legs and has brought negative publicity for a supposed fiscal conservative. He is facing domestic violence accusations, always fun. He has also been using some questionable techniques to raise money at FIU, which were unsound enough to draw a rebuke from the university president.
As for money, Rivera still leads but not by an impressive amount. The Republican has $1.1 million cash on hand, while Garcia has just over $623,000. But Garcia doesn't need money as much. Rivera is a state lawmaker and has appeared on the ballot in part of this district, but Garcia has run district-wide. There were 115,820 people who voted for him in 2008, and that was during a presidential election. Hopefully he can mobilize those forces again and take this open seat from Republican hands. He is a proven vote-getter and a potential winner for the blue team.
Is it likely? I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say we have an uphill battle here. But it seems more likely Garcia will win this race than that West will beat Klein. Heck, I think this race is more likely to end up changing hands than Kosmas' seat. And without an incumbent, this one really is ours to win.
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