In the end, the Republican Party couldn’t fool enough NPAs into voting for their ringer and Democrat Javier Fernandez ended up with just over 51 percent of the vote.
Fernandez will replace former State Rep. Daisy Baez, who 
resigned after she was caught lying about living in the district. He has to start campaigning again, immediately, since this is only to fill out the seat until November. And Ladra only hopes that Republican Andrew Vargas, who hasn’t answered a single call or text since he learned Ladra’s number, wants a rematch because he will be easier to beat the second time around because he will have less money and less credibility against an incumbent. A five minute incumbent, but an incumbent nonetheless, which was the whole point of this special election called by the GOP governor, which backfired.
But the day didn’t start so promising for Javi, or the blue party, which was jumping up and down by early Tuesday night. Even before the polls opened at 7 a.m., they knew they had an uphill battle: The majority of the 11,052 ballots cast by mail as of Monday were returned by Republicans, as usual. By a margin of about 1,000. Ouch. The early voting total of 1,876 did not seem significant enough to have any real impact on that.
Together, the early results indicated, instead, a wide gap — with Vargas scoring 52% to Fernandez’s 45. Liz de las Cuevas, the fake NPA who didn’t raise hardly any money or wage any campaign, didn’t do as much damage as expected there, with less than 3% of the ABs going to her, not enough to have made a big difference for Fernandez.
Or for Vargas, either, as the gap started to shrink and then grow again in the other direction with the Election Day precincts. First to 49 to 48% with Vargas still leading, but that didn’t last long. Within less than a couple of hits of the refresh button, Fernandez had reversed the score and then grew his lead with 51% to 47% lickety split. Fernandez had pulled an Election Day miracle: He turned an 807-vote deficit into a 721-vote lead. No way a Republican can come back from those numbers.
Whew! Because it should have been easier for Fernandez. This is a district that went blue two years ago, before the tidal wave of turnovers and Democratic victories this season. Registrations are split pretty evenly by thirds, meaning that neither party can win without independent voter support. And usually independent support leans blue.
So Vargas and the GOP — which outspent Fernandez at least 3 to 1, and we don’t even know about all the secret PAC cash — played hard with a strategy to make blue lean independent. They stuck a fake NPA 
candidate into the fray and then promoted her through a shady political action committee that has not reported any financial activity and that mailed dozens of attacks directly to NPA and Democrat voters in order to peel some from Fernandez to try to reduce his advantage.
Whew. In the end, they just ended up as out of breath as you right now after that sentence.
De las Cuevas got less than 2.5% of the vote, or 411 bubbles in her favor. It seems like People for a Progressive Florida wasted their time and secret money — even with the people they hired to stand outside some high performing precincts with flyers — because de las Cuevas really should have gotten more than 400 votes just by being the only female on the ballot. I mean really? Is this the worst performing NPA in the history of the 114?
On the heels of other Democrat wins across the state — this was keeping the seat but in most cases, Dems are flipping seats — could it be that the blue tsunami is, indeed, coming?
Or what else are Republicans gonna try now that they now fake NPAs and shady PACs are useless defenses against the tidal wave?
Javier Fernandez beats shady PAC, fake NPA in nail-biter Florida House 114 race added by Ladra on
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