Lynda Bell pulls out more stadium lies, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

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“We were trying to make a bad situation better. If they were going to do it anyway, we were looking at how it would benefit the local community,” Levine Cava told Ladra.

Still, it’s left Levine Cava in a position where she has to explain the situation in a made-up issue over and over again rather than campaign on real issues. That costs her time, which at this point is everything. But it also gives her the confidence that Bell does not have the 10-point lead her supporters are boasting about.

“She wouldn’t be reaching out for last minute endorsements or creating this kind of distortion,” Levine Cava told me. “And we don’t think the voters are fooled.”

She and other Democrats said that Bell’s recent flurry of activity — and her hammering on the Marlins issue, in particular — makes it look like she is grasping at straws and becoming more desperate.

“She’s getting a little nervous,” said Juan Cuba, executive director of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, who added that the local GOP has also gotten behind Bell in recent days.

“About time,” Cuba said. “We’ve been doing this for a while.”

Local Dems have been walking door-to-door and running phone banks, he said. “I don’t care how many TV buys she makes, the game now is getting the vote out.”

But Levine Cava has also been landing in mailboxes almost daily. The campaign is responsible for four of those mailers while PACs and the Florida Democratic Party put out about twice that many

“I am lucky to have so many groups supporting me and it is indicative of two things — how eager people are to see me get elected and how much they feel they need to unseat Lynda Bell.”

That includes labor unions who are flocking to this race like tourists to a hot sandy spot on the beach.

“Our members seem to be more engaged in this than any other election and getting out there to vote in the largest numbers that I’ve ever seen,” said PBA President John Rivera.

Andy Madtes, president of the largest AFSCME union in the county, says that his group has knocked on 7,000 doors for Levine Cava and that the numbers indicate she is doing well. He says that a small majority of the 6,000 people who have voted already through absentee ballots and early voting are Democrats, who will lean toward Levine Cava. And that 1,000 of those are union members, who will lean toward Levine Cava.

But people embedded in both campaigns tell Ladra that each candidate is confident she will win what’s become the most competitive commission race Tuesday.

Bell’s people and some GOP insiders, perhaps buoyed by the Marlins stadium attacks, have the incumbent up by as much as 10 points. Labor leaders and Democrat activists say Levine Cava is a slight four or five points above.

Ladra has a feeling — and it’s nothing more than that — that it’s going to be closer than either side thinks.

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  Daniella Levine Cava, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lynda Bell