Republicans crush blue wave with red rush on South Florida Dem incumbents

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Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar go to Washington

Two incumbent Democrat congresswomen were ousted in Tuesday’s election by Republicans and a blue state senator behind by 21 votes is headed for an instant recount in three shocker South Florida races that did not end like many political operatives and observers by had predicted.

And in the state House, Democrats lost at least two seats and failed to gain any in what some are already calling a red crush of the blue wave. In each case, the incumbent Democrats led in absentee or vote-by-mail ballots only to lose the lead in early voting and Election Day ballots.

That Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez beat Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell isn’t that big of an upset. His name recognition, after being the mayor for the last nine years, is huge and he used his bully pulpit to campaign on the COVID crisis — tweeting alerts from his name rather than the county emergency operations center — and suppress the vote in predominantly progressive precincts.

Guided by children from out of town, Mucarsel-Powell was a ghost who barely campaigned, outside of paid media, until it was too late. The corrupt label doesn’t stick to him. We learned that in 2016 didn’t we? And it was over when he brought out the big guns — wife Lourdes Gimenez — to defend the family with a Spanish language radio spot.

Read related: New and improved Corrupt Carlos Gimenez video exposes ‘family ties’

So DMP lost by almost 8,000 votes and Grimenez won with just 51.35%. In Miami-Dade. He did better in Monroe County — the district includes the Keys — with an 8-point lead at 54% of the vote, widening the gap with another 4,100 votes.

He is now our congressman. We gotta watch the Everglades like a hawk.

But for Congresswoman Donna Shalala and Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez — who has been front and center on fixing Florida’s broken unemployment system — to get beaten by two Trump-loving Latinas with marketing/media backgrounds and zero political experience? That has everybody texting “wtf” to each other.

Rodriguez still has a chance. He and Latinas for Trump founder Ileana Garcia, who was raised in Allapattah, are neck and neck with 48.52 and 48.53%, respectively, and could be headed to an automatic recount that is triggered when there is a difference of .05% or less.

Right now, it’s .01%, or 21 votes.

Again, the Democrat incumbent outperformed in absentee or vote-by-mail ballots with almost 20,000 more nods in his favor. And the Republican challenger overcame that with early voting and Election Day results.

Nobody took Garcia seriously. But apparently her scare tactics and the Republican playbook “they’re going to shut down the police” campaign worked in this district.

Read related: Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez releases 1st TV ad in race vs Trump Latina Ileana Garcia

There’s also the possibility that NPA candidate Alex Rodriguez, who got 6,366 votes, could really be a plantidate in the race to peel votes from J-Rod — who may have lost by 21 votes. The same last name is just bonus.

We will probably know who our president is before we know who won that senate race. J-Rod could not be immediately reached for comment and did not return a text to his cellphone late Tuesday. He might still be in shock.

Shalala and her team were stunned by their loss to Spanish-language journalist Maria Elvira Salazar, as evidenced by her short, terse statement, emailed to the press at 11:35 p.m.

“I want to congratulate my opponent. It has been a spirited campaign. It has been a great honor to represent the people of Miami-Dade,” Shalala said.

“I have fought for issues that matter most to our families, from access to affordable healthcare, to tackling climate change, to justice for all and a better future for our children,” she said in the statement. “I will continue to demand our leaders follow the advice of our world-class scientists and public health leaders to crush the virus and rebuild our economy.”

She shouldn’t be so surprised, though. It’s one thing to have your GOP opponent call you a communist or a socialist, because all Democrats are socialists these days. It’s another thing entirely to admit it yourself.

“I’m a pragmatic socialist,” she says in a video clip that Salazar used in a TV spot and very effectively on social media.

Salazar, who also lagged behind in ABs but got stellar support in early voting and on Election Day, is also better at presenting herself on TV. She, like Trump, is a brand that people want to be associated with. It’s actually sort of shocking that she lost to Shalala in 2018.

But these upsets wouldn’t have happened if the local Democratic Party — both at the county and state level — were less intensely involved in the non partisan races that they poured resources into this year (more on that later).

Sure, they helped get Miami-Dade Mayor Elect Daniella Levine Cava into office, but they also lost two congressional seats and could lose a senate seat as well as two state House seats. Nevermind the opportunity to flip a state senate seat and a state house seat or two blue. The Dems couldn’t even protect the seats they had.

  Carlos Gimenez, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Donna Shalala, Ileana Garcia, Jose Javier Rodriguez, Maria Elvira Salazar