Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez is facing two challengers, but only one is a real threat. Former State Rep. Robert Asencio is a sleeper candidate who beat none other than David “Nine Lives” Rivera in 2016 for a House seat in 118 — by a scant 53 votes.
Despite a canyon-sized gap in their campaign financing, this race promises to be just as close — okay, maybe not just as close, but close — and 
Asencio, buoyed by a likely runoff and a blue wave of voters, has a real chance for a repeat performance at the county level. Like other county seats, this is not a partisan race. But like other county seats, it has become partisan. And that might help Asencio as Democrats and NPAs — who typically vote blue — are returning absentee ballots, which are gonna have a banner year, at a 2 for 1 pace.
Colombian lawyer Cristhian David Mancera Mejia won’t do more than force a runoff — if that. So let’s get back to reality.
The perceived front-runner is Martinez, a Republican who ran for county mayor (2012) and congress (2014) unsuccessfully before coming back to the commission in 2016. He is a longtime commission 
veteran who served previously from 2000 to 2012 and is rather popular in his district, despite being Commissioner Cranky. Don’t get on his bad side, or you’re dead to him. Ladra likes this 2.0 version better — the self proclaimed sole dissenter, or “Mr. No,” who asks uncomfortable questions at the dais and doesn’t hold back his tongue doing it.
Earlier this month, Martinez got his colleagues to open up the Section 8 public housing waiting list that’s been closed for 12 years so that new applicants could be added to the close to 35,000 residents on the list already who are still on hold for subsidized housing. He also pushed for a COVID-19 testing center to open in the West Dade area before the state and county opened a drive-through site at the Youth Fair grounds.
Read related: Joe Martinez gets Miami-Dade’s 8th COVID19 testing site at Youth Fair
Asencio served in the House from 2016 to 2018 and actually, for a freshman in the minority, was able to get a few things done. He sponsored and unanimously passed a bill making Florida the first state to 
ban credit card skimmers, helping law enforcement agencies seize them to curb identity theft. He also helped bring back money for a veterans’ court program to hear dependency and other veteran issues.
“I’m very proud of that,” said Asencio, who nevertheless was then beaten two years later, 51-49% ( by 1,254 votes), by Republican Anthony Rodriguez, who is up for re-election on the same ballot.
As former president of the Miami-Dade Public Schools Police union and founder of the Florida Public Employees Partnership, a nonprofit organization that advocates for public sector workers, it’s natural he would get the endorsement of all the labor unions: The South Florida AFL-CIO endorsed him earlier this month while members of the United Teachers of Dade, AFSCME, South Florida AFL-CIO, Teamsters, CWA, Transport Workers Union and the IUPAT offered their support in unison on Friday.
“We haven’t had time off, we haven’t had any type of compensation that could maybe help us deal with the stress, with our finances,” said Rene Sanchez, president of AFCSME Local 163 said in a statement. “We’re dealing with concerns for our lives. I ask you, Mr. Asencio, when you win, and we’re going to win, that we put the pandemic where it needs to be, at the top of the agenda.”
But he is going to need their help and all he can get from the Democratic Party, which also endorsed him, because Asencio has almost no money. He’s raised only a total of $17,655 as of the last campaign finance report submitted last week. And he’s spent all but about $4,500.
Meanwhile, Martinez — who did not return a phone call nor a text (later he texted that he had bad reception and would be back from wherever he is on Saturday) — has only spent just over $34,000 of the $215,500 he’s collected in donations so he’s got tons of cash on hand for a last minute push and to drive voters to the polls during early voting. Those expenses were through July 17, however, and Ladra was told that a few mailers arrived in the last 10 days, concurrently with vote-by-mail ballots.
Asencio calls Martinez an “absentee commissioner” who has failed to denounce the state’s disastrous unemployment system and has been around too long already with nothing to show for it.
Read related: Joe Martinez congressional debut: More cake, less punch
“The guy was elected in 2000. Here it is 20 years later and we have many unmet needs,”
Asencio told Ladra Wednesday. “Transportation is still a disaster. Even the bus routes are 30 years outdated. We have one of the biggest gems in the area, underutilized — the executive airport.”
Asencio wants to prioritize economic development at the Kendall Executive Airport and attract growing industries to benefit not just the county, from the long-term leases, but the local economy through job creation and neighborhood spending. He wants to add workforce housing for the new high-paying jobs he wants to bring to the district so people don’t have to be stuck in traffic.
“Joe wants to build a Kendall Parkway. I want to improve people’s lives by keeping them here,” Asencio said. “It’s time for change. You can’t tell me we can’t do better.”
He doesn’t have to win in August. Asencio just needs to make it into the runoff so he can take advantage of the anti-Trump vote in November. It’s not a given, seeing as how Republicans have represented the district forever except for the two year blip when Asencio went to Tallahassee.
But whether it’s next month or November, what’s called the West End will either get an experienced commissioner with a scorching tongue at a time when there is a lot of turnover and we can use the stability and institutional knowledge, or a consensus-building public labor and consumer watchdog with a fire in his belly.
Voters really can’t lose.
In Miami-Dade District 11, sleeper Robert Asencio could can Joe Martinez added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
