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Miami Republicans Score Big with Women Candidates
A record number of Republican women are running for office in Miami-Dade.
The 2018 midterm elections will be pivotal for Republicans in Florida, especially after a series of blows and special election defeats to less well-funded Democrats. Republicans have exerted complete control over the Governor’s Mansion, the Florida Cabinet, the State House, and the State Senate for nearly two decades and for the first time appear to be in serious danger of losing this to the Democrats.
Nowhere will this be more critical than Miami-Dade where the president’s relatively low approval rating and record-low county-wide performance in the 2016 presidential election (Trump performed worse than any GOP presidential candidate since 1944) is seriously hampering down-ballot Republican candidates as Democrats frame these elections as referenda on the president’s tenure.
This has been the case in the latest string of special elections, in which State Representative José Félix Díaz loss to former Miami-Dade County Democratic Party Chair and five-time candidate Annette Taddeo in the race for Senate District 40 after the resignation of Sen. Frank Artiles, Republican attorney Andrew Vargas outspent Democratic lawyer Javier Fernandez by a three-to-one margin yet loss the special election in House District 114 caused by the residency…
