In the District 40 Senate primary, trust fund baby Andrew Korge has sent the single Democrat voter in Ladra’s household 12 mailers in the past couple weeks. That’s more than all the other candidates on my ballot — combined.
It’s gotta be some kind of record.
Korge, who is running against incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard and former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan (like it or not) in the Aug. 30 election, is the richest of the three candidates by far, with a $700,000 war chest amassed.
It’s no wonder he has sent 12 mailers. He has money to burn. Whoever is doing those mailers for him is going to have a good year.
Read related story: Andrew Korge PAC attacks Bullard finances in mailer
Five of those mailers have been negative attacks. Two attacks in both Spanish and English against Bullard, for campaign finance violations and campaign spending. And one in just Spanish attacking Logan. Because he knows where he’s weak.
The other seven are positive, and two of them are in both Spanish and English. They talk about creating jobs and raising the minimum wage and “protecting Democrat values” and improving our public schools. But the most important part, for the campaign, are the pictures of Korge with both Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
In fact, it’s not enough that Korge has Democrat photo ops. One mailer promotes his “Democrat roots” with vintage pics of his grandfather George Korge with former super blue Congressman Dante Fascell, for whom grampa was campaign treasurer. You have to appreciate the old timey album feel of the photos with corner sleeves. There’s even one of Kid Korge as a 3-year-old wearing a Fascell shirt at one of the legislator’s famous Labor Day picnics.
Why’d he skip a generation? Ladra is sure there are pics of Papi Chris Korge with all these Democrats and then some. Could it be because Chris Korge made all his money in the sweet concession deals at Miami International Airport that he got during the Alex Penelas days?
Read related story: Alex Penelas crowd hosts Andrew Korge Senate kick-off
All but two of the mailers — one positive piece and the hit piece on Rivas Logan — were paid for by the political action committee Friends of Andrew Korge. The PAC had raised a total of $385,129 as of the end of July and still had $217,940 to spend. But, while it looks like he has spent at least $87,000 on TV commercials, none of the expenses so far account for the intense mailbox activity. It must be coming in the next report. The candidate’s own campaign account also listed zero mailers under expenditures and it only had $90,442 of the $343,516 raised.
But there’s another campaign finance report coming soon. Korge will likely spend $1 million before the Aug. 30 primary. His opponents have a fraction of that. Bullard has less than half of the $126,883 he raised as of July 29. And Rivas Logan, who has suspended her campaign, had less than $10K of the $17,500 she raised.
Ladra doubts her mailbox will be seeing anything from either of them — but more from Korge.
Whoever wins this contest, will have to go up in November against State Rep. Frank Artiles, who now wants to be a senator. Artiles has $251,428 left of the $411,893 he raised. Plus he has access to multiple PACs and will likely get help from the Republican Party of Florida to win a seat they so desperately want to flip.
And while he doesn’t have a primary opponent, Artiles has already sent two mailers from his campaign.