What an anticlimactic finish.
There were no big surprises and there will be no runoffs in the city of Miami after both Mayor Francis Suarez and Commissioner Joe Carollo won re-election by huge margins and newcomer Christine King totally stomped on appointed Commissioner Jeffrey “Who” Watson‘s dreams to serve a real term.
Suarez, who had no real opposition, took 79% of the vote. Carollo is going to be aún más insoportable with his 65%, which will just embolden him to be even more abusive of his office. And King, the local favorite and handpicked successor to Keon Hardemon before he moved to the county commission, had a very comfy 65%.
No nail-biting. No drama. No joke.
Most expected these results. Suarez didn’t have any real opposition but spent almost $1.4 million anyway (more on that later) between his campaign and his Miami For Everyone political action committee as of Oct. 28, which is when the last campaign finance report is through.
And Watson, who spent much of his professional life in Washington, D.C., was pretty much an unknown in the area before he was appointed to the seat vacated by Hardemon last November. And after.
Read related: Jeffrey Watson goes back on his word, runs for full term in Miami’s District 5
Plus, he promised not to run for the seat when he sought the appointment and then did, which kind of left a bad taste in the mouths of District 5 voters who don’t think they can trust him.
King, president and CEO of the Martin Luther King Economic Development Corp., has also been campaigning for more than a year, and seems to have a network of support. She presented a video of resident and activist testimony when she sought the appointment last year.
And she didn’t mince words when Watson got it in a political shell game.
She also raised money like an incumbent — $325,255 in contributions as of last week while Watson collected $60,750 for his campaign account and $170,000 for his political action committee, Fighting For Change. She had spent $208,712 by Oct. 28 while Watson — who got 16% of the vote — spent $159,348. The Improve Miami PAC controlled by lobbyist Barbara Hardemon, the county commissioner’s aunt, spent another $80,000 this year through Oct. 28, most likely on King’s campaign.
It’s going to be good to have a woman on the dais, but King is a Hardemon on paper and she will be expected to vote for them. She is also expected to be an ally for Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who fought hard for her appointment last year, and could really use an ally these days.
Ladra just hopes she can put Carollo in his place. After all, he and Commissioner Manolo Reyes usurped her predicted appointment.
Speaking of the devil, quite literally, it’s not a total shock that he won. Carollo has his people completely hoodwinked. But it is a little jarring — can we say suspicious? — that he won with such a wide margin. In one precinct where he got 87% of the vote, the county elections department has recorded 207 votes for Crazy Joe on Election Day, which seemed to have very low turnout. Como?
So 207 mostly viejito voters braved the rain to cast ballots personally at the Little Havana Nutrition and Activities Center on Northwest 7th Street? It’s interesting that only 153 voters cast ballots for Mayor Suarez. In fact, the mayoral contest got 428 votes in total at precinct 503 and the District 3 race got 535 votes in total. Is it reasonable to believe that 107 people who voted for Carollo did not cast a vote at all in the mayoral race?
Read related: Miami Commission appoints Jeffrey Watson to vacancy in a. new power shift
The next highest Election Day turnout for Carollo was at Jose Marti Park with where the incumbent got 104 votes, almost half as many. What what?
It’s not just Ladra. Nobody wants to believe that Carollo — who only won by 252 votes four years ago, mostly because he didn’t live in the district — could get such sweeping support. After all the abuse of power? After all the lawsuits? After chasing off the city manager, two police chiefs and a dozen other department heads? After all the self-serving monotonous diatribes?
These numbers just don’t look real. Even with the half a million he spent between his campaign account and his Miami First PAC. That math adds up to $135.12 per vote when you divide the $540,198 spent as of Oct. 28 by the 3,998 people who voted for Crazy Joe.
Rodney Quinn Smith, who came in second with 22%, spent less than $82K — or just over $60 a vote. At least. Those per-vote totals will change once that all the candidates’ spending is reported, which should be in 45 days.
Sure, Smith was painted with that socialist brush by more than a dozen mailers telling voters that his law firm once worked for the Venezuelan government. That was definitely a killjoy. It’s hard to get over that in Little Havana.
But with only 1,355 votes in total what on Earth did the Miami-Dade Democrats do to help him? Why couldn’t he get the 1,900 voters who signed recall petitions against Carollo last year?
No runoffs in Miami as incumbents and Christine King score big election wins added by Ladra on
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