Credit: Annette Taddeo/Facebook

Credit: Annette Taddeo/Facebook
Welp, Democrats finally have a win on their hands they can point to as a sign of a possible Trump backlash in the 2018 midterms.

On Tuesday, Democrat Annette Taddeo bested Republican opponent, former State Rep. Jose Felix-Diaz, by some 3.5 percentage points in a special election to determine the Miami-area State Senate seat.

And all it took was former State Senator Frank Artiles, a Miami-area Republican, saying some things quite racistly earlier this year.

Across the country, Republicans have won a few nationally-watched the special elections that have occurred in the wake of one Donald J. Trump's inauguration. Mind you, none of the nationally watched specials were in swing districts; they were in districts/states that were safely Republican by design…you don't think a sitting president would extract a cabinet member from a swing seat, do ya now?

Anyway, it's a big morale boost for Democrats, who could use the good news more than a year out from the 2018 midterms…and exactly six weeks out from the St. Pete mayor's race, in which Rs and Ds alike have invested untold resources into what has traditionally been a nonpartisan contest.

Whether or not they said it out loud directly in the wake of Tuesday's results, to most Democrats, Taddeo's win is a sign that hammering their Republican counterparts for belonging to the same party as Trump/Nazis/etc. may actually work in he coming months and years.

Here are some rather giddy Dem responses to Taddeo's victory in the South Florida swing district:

In his statement following the results of the election, Florida Democratic Party chair Stephen Bittell didn't mention Trump as he heralded the victory, but he did say the victory was one of many to come.

"Congratulations to Annette Taddeo on this major victory for Miami-Dade and our entire state. This is a win for all of Florida. Democrats represent 16 of 40 state Senate seats. Annette will head to Tallahassee ready to fight for higher paying jobs, affordable healthcare and fully funded public schools. Democrats across the state are energized and mobilizing to flip Florida blue. After nearly 20 years of harmful GOP policies, voters are ready for a better deal…This victory is the first of many, as we are poised to claim the governorship, we are prepared to re-elect Senator Bill Nelson, and we are within striking distance of reaching parity in the upper chamber of the state legislature."

Tom Perez, head of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted his congratulations.

Susan McGrath, chair of the Pinellas County Democratic Executive Committee, tweeted that the outcome of Tuesday's election has local implications…in that two registered Republicans in St. Petersburg's municipal races — former Mayor/current mayoral candidate Rick Baker and city council candidate Justin Bean — will probably take this as a sign to dodge questions about how much they like Trump even harder than they already were.

St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman, who is fending off a challenge from Baker, one of the above-mentioned Republicans, didn't get into politics on Twitter, but he did congratulate Taddeo.


Congressman Charlie Crist, who chose Taddeo as his running mate for his unsuccessful second bid for governor in 2014, didn't get political, but he congratulated his almost-lieutenant governor.



This article appears in Sep 21-28, 2017.