Fighters Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, Alex Fernandez win runoffs in Miami Beach

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Two ‘new’ commissioners the community already knows, and well

Miami Beach voters chose two longtime City Hall regulars and resident advocates as commissioners in Tuesday’s runoff election — despite the deep pockets running against them.

Former Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who left in 2018 to run for Congress, is back in office with 55% of the vote and Alex Fernandez — who has served on a million committees and worked as an aide for former Commissioner DeeDee Weithorn — got 59%.

Raquel Pacheco had the Miami-Dade Democrats helping her hard and the endorsements from Mayor Dan Gelber, former Mayor Philip Levine, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, SAVE, firefighters everywhere, The Miami Herald y no sé quien más. Todos equivocados. She raised more money for her campaign since the first round than before Nov. 2 — $68,735 in eight days to more than double her total raised as of Friday, which is the last day recorded on the latest campaign finance reports.

Rosen Gonzalez, too, had her best fundraising period with just over $47,000 collected since getting pole position in the first round, according to her campaign report. She raised a total of $146,314 that was just a smidge over Pacheco’s total of $133,500.

Of course, she didn’t have the Dems paying for mailers like Pacheco did.

Low turnout — at 14% of the registered voters — definitely had an impact. Rosen Gonzalez won the runoff with 50 fewer votes than all the ballots cast for Pacheco in the first round. All this proves, however, is that Pacheco was popular with casual voters and Gelber’s base. But Rosen Gonzalez is known to the voters who are always engaged and know what they are doing.

Read related: Miami Beach election ramps up with mostly familiar faces in the running

That’s also why the other seat in Miami Beach goes to Fernandez, who beat Stephen Cohen by a bigger margin, 59% to 41%. Most political observers expected it. Ladra doesn’t know one person who voted for Cohen, who came de la nada and doesn’t know where the bathroom is at City Hall. But Fernandez, who’s been on many committees and chaired the police board, was — que lindo — flabbergasted, truly sweating it out on Election Day.

“I’m beyond honored by such a strong show of confidence from the electorate and I will work hard everyday to make them proud of having voted for me,” Fernandez told Ladra. “This is a message from residents that they want a cleaner and safer city and a government that is worthy of its people — transparent, accessible.”

Fernandez was run out of City Hall in 2013 by Levine, as political payback because he supported former Commissioner Michael Góngora, whose seat he now fills. So, he turned around and got a better job at the county.

He’s going to resign from his job as a legislative aide to Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa and dedicate himself to the council full-time. Fernandez says he can afford to and that residents didn’t only get him, but his husband Robert Wolfarth, who is also actively engaged in civic life.

“We’re a small city and it’s a part time job, but we have big city problems,” Fernandez said.

Read related: Miami Beach commission runoff could stack the deck against Ocean Drive

Cohen spent about twice as much as Fernandez, raising $408,000 to the latter’s $245K. Well, really Cohen raised almost $10,000. He loaned himself $397,860, according to the latest reports. An an additional $40-some-thousand in in-kind expenses like postage and office supplies. He paid for a lot of advertising — local TV, cable, emails, social — and went negative. Fernandez kept it clean and on the issues.

But, then again, Fernandez didn’t have to go negative to get attention. Cohen did.

What Cohen didn’t have to do was waste so much money ($270,000+) on a New York City political consultant that obviously knows nada about Miami Beach politics.

  Alex Fernandez, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez