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The Florida Democratic Party has already filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department and asked for a civil — and, “if appropriate” — criminal investigation. Curbelo has called it “frivolous” and it has been discredited because it was filed by the Dems. But who else would?
Garcia’s campaign is talking. “Carlos Curbelo is continuing to try to change the subject from the growing scandal surrounding his refusal to disclose his 
lobbying clients and his funneling money intended for our schools to his political donors, but releasing a survey from Eric Cantor‘s pollster which was conducted just as the Miami Herald was printing headlines about criminal complaints filed against Curbelo, isn’t very convincing evidence,” spokesman Miguel Salazar said in a statement.
The reference to Cantor, the former House Majority Leader, is a jab at McLaughlin & Associates because it did not forecast his surprise primary loss earlier this year. But the highly respected firm got it right closer to home when it predicted in 2012 that Garcia would beat former Congressman David “Nine Lives” Rivera — who was in headlines about ethical investigations of his own — by 10 points. Garcia won by 11 in a District that Obama took by 7.
Look at those undervotes! How many Republicans voted in the presidential race and abstained in the congressional race? Or — dare we say it? — crossed lines and voted for Garcia in disgust?
Now that Garcia’s troubles are trickling down to the ballot box, the trend may go the other way.
Read related story: Things just went from bad to worse for U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia
Despite his own negative news ticker — or perhaps because of it — Garcia’s best hope would be in suppressing Republican votes for Curbelo and hope that his transgressions is perceived as more evil than the charges against the congressman’s staff, charges that Curbelo is going to make sure everyone 
knows about. Ladra hasn’t seen any yet, but absentee ballots drop in a couple of weeks, so look for the mailers with Jeff Garcia’s smiling mug behind prison bars in a mailbox near you soon.
After all, as Curbelo’s poll shows, that’s where he can make inroads.
The GOP challenger — who won with a 47 percent of the vote in the primary — sure crowed about this poll of 100 “likely” voters who have cast ballots in one of the past three elections. But those are not supervoters, who cast ballots in all three of them. I bet the gap would be wider among supervoters.
Garcia’s people feign indifference.
“South Floridians know that Rep. Garcia always puts them first –- and the support we receive from the tens of thousands of conversations we’ve had over the past months is a much more accurate barometer of what South Floridians want from their representative in Washington,” spokesman Salazar’s statement said.
But they are sweating it. They haven’t released the results of their own internal poll — and Ladra always thinks that means “oh oh” — but a couple of insiders admitted that Houston’s got a problem. Also, a phone bank Thursday night used the poll to try to drum up volunteers and donations.
“A recent poll has Joe down by as much as four percent,” the caller said.
Do the math. It’s more.
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Big news: Carlos Curbelo leads in poll. Duh! Do the math added by Ladra on
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