Mark Bell’s Homestead loss ripples over to wife Lynda Bell

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Now that Mark Bell‘s bid for Homestead mayor is a thing of the past, how will his loss Tuesday to former Councilman Jeff Porter — who he outspent at least 4 to 1 — affect his wife, Miami-Dade Commission Vice Chair Lynda Bell?

That is what everyone was buzzing about Wednesday.

Bell is up for -re-election next year and observers have long said that this race in her hometown could be a good litmus test for the 2014 race, which isn’t solely in Homestead — but she isn’t making friends in Pinecrest and Palmetto Bay anyway so it might as well be. Some have said that her supporters were watching this race to see how heavily to back (read: how much to contribute to) Lynda Bell’s re-election campaign.

And Mr. Lynda Bell’s loss Tuesday certainly encouraged a couple of potential opponents.

“It’s not good going into the election this year,” said Florida International University Professor Dario Moreno, a well-known pollster. “She is probably the most likely incumbent to get an opponent.”

Actually, it looks like there are at least two waiting in the wings.

One of them is former State Rep. Ana Rivas-Logan, who lost a bitter and ugly Republican primary last year for a redrawn house seat that threw her in with State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz. She confirmed that to Ladra Wednesday morning that she was being pursued for the county seat.

“I am being strongly encouraged to consider running,” Rivas-Logan told me. And you can tell she is aching to go back to public office, but not at the state level. “I do better in non-partisan races. I’m too moderate for a partisan race.”

She first has to convince her family, however.

“The first votes I have to get are my family’s, because they said that if I ran again, they would go out and vote for my opponent,” she said.

Rivas-Logan will also have to convince Democrats that she really ain’t that partisan. Because the Miami-Dade Democratic Party — which worked hard, knocking on a reported 5,000 doors and financing three robocalls and one mailer, to get newly elected Homestead Mayor Jeff Porter 55 % of the vote — is recruiting someone of their own.

And las malas lenguas say that activist Danielle Levine , founder of Human Services Coalition, now renamed Catalyst Miami, is topping their list.

Dade Dems Chair Annette Taddeo would not name names but confirmed the party was recruiting someone and sources say meetings are happening as early as this week.

Taddeo, who lost in 2010’s first round to replace former commish Katy Sorenson against Bell and former Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene Flinn, was not too exhausted Tuesday night to tweet after Porter’s victory: “BREAKING NEWS: #TeamPorter wins one 4 the good guys-so proud of @MiamiDadeDems @FlaDems (Linda Bell is next).”

Taddeo indicated that the party has been looking for someone to run against Bell for a while.

“It was always a vulnerable seat,” she told Ladra.

Commissioner Bell was too busy to talk this morning — maybe still recovering from the race. “I can’t talk right now” she told Ladra. “I’m in the middle of something. I will have to get back to you.”

By Wednesday afternoon, she had not and did not answer subsequent calls.

But the vice chair spoke to me about this “litmus test” theory before the primary and said that she didn’t think one race has anything to do with the other.

Sounds like the confidence of an incumbent who already has $176,000 in her campaign coffers, according to the latest financial reports.

But maybe she should have something else to back that up. After all, Porter beat Mr. Lynda Bell with far less money.

  Lynda Bell, Mark Bell