There are no Donalds atop the August 30 primary ballot.
For some, there will be a Marco; for others, an Alan and a Patrick.
Further down, names of lesser-known newcomers mix with those of familiar politicians. In quite a few cases, winners of Tuesday’s primary will have essentially won or held onto their seats, given that their November opponents don’t have much of a shot.
Yet despite the primary being so soon — and the swarms of campaign mailers that heralded it — candidates and races remain obscure to many voters.
We hope to demystify them as much as we can.
U.S. Senate
Incumbent Marco Rubio’s presidential aspirations were shot down in March. Now the Miami Republican is having what will likely be an easy time against a long list of unknowns and Trump-like candidate Carlos Beruff. The better-known primary candidates jumped ship when Rubio decided to run for reelection.
So, yeah, nothing exciting there, unless you dig Beruff.
Democrats have sizable primary drama, though, via a three-way race pitting U.S. Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) and Patrick Murphy (D-Jupiter) and attorney Pam Keith against one another.
Murphy is a moderate former Republican favored by the party establishment; Grayson is an outspoken progressive known for bombast. Keith, also progressive, is more soft-spoken.
Grayson’s name recognition is far superior (he got national media attention during the Obamacare debate when he said the Republican health plan was “Don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly”). But many political observers are calling it for Murphy — even though he has refused to debate his opponents.
Florida Senate District 19
Lawmakers were forced to redraw some state Senate districts to reverse any gerrymandering (which is now illegal). The seat State Sen. Arthenia Joyner is leaving due to term limits was one of these, though the makeup of the district didn’t change dramatically. It had been a cross-bay minority access district (intentionally drawn to include a majority of minorities as a way, supposedly, to make sure their voices were heard), and it still comprises parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas County, though a northward shift of the boundary has added more white voters into the mix. Still, it’s likely to stay in Democratic hands.
In the primary running for the seat are State Reps. Ed Narain (of Tampa) and Darryl Rouson (of St. Pete), former Tampa area State Rep. Betty Reed and newcomer/lawyer Augie Ribeiro, who lives in St. Pete.
The four have quite a few similarities: They all favor medical marijuana to some degree and would like to see more restrictions on gun ownership.
Some view it as a Tampa vs. St. Pete race, something a few endorsements seem to reflect (Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, for example, endorsed Narain; St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman endorsed Rouson).
And the mudslinging has been heavy.
Attack mailers have been rampant. Candidates have been accusing one another of being closet Republicans, especially in the Narain/Ribeiro/Rouson showdown.
Narain, who works for AT&T, seems to have the support of the Tallahassee establishment (as much as a Democrat can have). But he said issues facing the district — anemic public education and generational poverty — are what compel him to run for the seat.
“When I look at my kids, I think of other kids that are not as well situated,” he said. “I’ve never really felt as if these politicians, these career politicians in particular, were fighting for the future of our kids the way that I have been doing here in Tampa Bay and the way that I have been doing it the last few years in the legislature.”
Other concerns of his are the impact of the controversial Tampa Bay Express project and the need for public transit (he’d like to change state law to allow cities to hold sales tax transit referendums).
Rouson, who unlike Narain is leaving his current seat due to term limits, is a lawyer and former Republican who touts his work on bills like the one that outlawed backyard gun ranges. Though now a Democrat, he does have a conservative streak. He has voted in favor of anti-choice laws on at least three occasions (though he has said it was an accident in all three cases). He said his record — which includes millions to the district and passing at least 16 pieces of legislation — ought to speak for itself.
Reed, meanwhile, who held the seat Narain currently occupies from 2006 to 2014, said running for state Senate is a logical next step in her political career, given her experience.
Chief among her concerns is job growth, and she says that although Democrats have trouble passing laws in Tallahassee, being in the smaller chamber would make it easier.
“You have less people you have to go to and identify with in order to get legislation passed,” she said.
Ribeiro is an attorney who, among other things, helped several Tampa Bay cities get BP oil spill settlement money.
He brands himself as the only progressive in the race, citing large corporate campaign donations to Narain as well as Rouson’s abortion votes as proof that they are out of touch with the needs of the district.
“Folks are being crushed by the cost of living, specifically in this district,” he said. “They need somebody who is going to be a loud champion for their issues.”
But Narain and other critics say Ribeiro’s the one who’s out of touch, as evidenced by his residence, a $2 million condo — not exactly something the district’s average resident can afford — and the fact that he’s largely self-funded.
He counters that being wealthy and being a progressive aren’t mutually exclusive, and says a Tampa Bay for Bernie endorsement lends him progressive cred.
The winner of the primary will face John “Mr. Manners” Houman, a moderate Republican newcomer.
Florida House District 60
It’s a South Tampa seat with a competitive Republican primary.
Jackie Toledo, a civil engineer who lost her Tampa City Council bid to Guido Maniscalco in March of 2015, faces businesswoman Rebecca Smith. Both have raised quite a bit in the runup to Tuesday — Toledo’s roughly $124,000 is dwarfed somewhat by Smith’s $185,000.
There hasn’t been much drama, though Toledo did call Smith out for using a construction site as a backdrop for a campaign ad — something Toledo herself was accused of doing during her City Council bid.
The winner faces Democrat David Singer, who has already raised close to $90,000, in the general election.
Florida House District 61
A three-way primary, yes, but a nasty attack-ad firestorm it is not.
Another minority access seat, the district comprises Ybor City, Seminole Heights and parts of downtown. It’s the seat Narain is vacating to run for state Senate.
Three people would like to take his place: local business owner Dianne Hart, former Narain rival Sean Shaw and civil engineer Walter Smith.
Hart owns a beauty salon and has been active on the issue of affordable housing for decades.
Smith has embraced environmental causes and has said he would like to see the specter of hydraulic fracturing — fracking — become a bigger campaign issue.
Hart has the endorsement of the Tampa Bay Times and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. She said as an affordable housing advocate she has had to work with Republicans, and that she believes she can help other Democratic lawmakers successfully make the case on policies like Medicaid expansion.
“I’ve worked my entire life unifying people,” she said. “I believe that common sense prevails in the end.”
Shaw clearly has the fundraising advantage; he’s raised $87,559.80 to Hart’s $44,610.64 and Smith’s $15, 291.63.
The winner of that primary will be unopposed in the general.
Florida House District 68
It came as something of a shock to politicos last spring when Democratic State Rep. Dwight Dudley announced he would not seek reelection and would instead seek a judgeship in Pinellas County’s 6th District Circuit Court.
Longtime Democratic operative Ben Diamond quickly jumped in, and Eric Lynn dropped out of his (probably un-winnable) Democratic congressional primary against Charlie Crist to challenge Diamond.
And it hasn’t been pretty.
There have been push polls and negative mailers casting one another as lobbyists, sleazy party insiders and the like.
Both are youngish fathers. Diamond is a lawyer who worked for Alex Sink when she was Chief Financial Officer of the state. Lynn is a former Pentagon official who touts his ties with President Obama.
Diamond said his top priority, if elected, would be to stop the Lake Okeechobee releases that are currently causing toxic algae blooms on the coast.
“We have a serious environmental crisis there that’s affecting our state,” he said.
Lynn, meanwhile, is passionate about education.
“Under Gov. Rick Scott and leadership in Tallahassee, Florida has become 46th in the nation in education investment spending and that is simply not acceptable for Pinellas families,” Lynn said though a spokesman via email. “I will fight to increase investment in education and provide funding to hire the specialists our children need to be successful.”
Lynn entered his former race well before former Governor Charlie Crist got in, and before incumbent David Jolly (R-Indian Shores) launched a Senate run only to change his mind when it became apparent Rubio was going to run to keep his seat. Lynn announced his state House run shortly after Diamond, a move that irked some Democrats who were hoping to not get engaged in a pricey and possibly nasty primary.
Diamond has pulled in more high-caliber endorsements — former Sen. Bob Graham, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman and a spate of other local elected officials. Dudley himself, as a judicial candidate, isn’t able to endorse, but his wife, Mary Rachel, has endorsed Diamond.
Diamond has also enjoyed more formidable fundraising — $237,847.82 to Lynn’s $107,673.00. But Lynn's political committee has dwarfed that of Diamond some $383,000 to $65,000.
Lynn caught flak early in the race for moving money from his Congressional campaign fund to his political committee; Democrats who supported his Congressional bid but preferred Diamond in HD 68 wanted their money back.
The winner of the primary will face Republican Joseph Bensmihen, himself a newcomer who earlier this summer got unwanted attention for a series of gaffes during a Suncoast Tiger Bay Club forum when his responses to one question showed his knowledge of the district was clearly lacking. His favorite restaurant on Fourth Street, he said, is Chic-fil-A.
Florida House District 70
The three-way Democratic primary for Rouson’s seat isn’t without its own flare-ups.
Candidates Christopher John “C.J.” Czaia and Dan Fiorini, both newcomers, have engaged in fiery debates — but not necessarily on the issues.
Though Fiorini is the only openly gay candidate in the race, Czaia has the endorsement of the Pinellas County Stonewall Democrats, a section of the party that supports LGBT-friendly candidates. The group has argued that it shouldn’t endorse on identity alone, but should support candidates whose policy positions and actions are more in line with theirs.
The plot thickened when word spread that Czaia had hired Theresa “Momma Tee” Lassiter to consult him on issues impacting the African-American community. Lassiter is known for her intolerance of LGBT individuals, and was recently quoted in the Tampa Bay Times as saying “I’m so sick of this LGBTQ community.”
The third candidate, former St. Pete City Councilman Wengay Newton, has stayed out of the fray.
Newton also leads the pack in terms of fundraising with almost $48,000.
Czaia raised just over $10,000, meanwhile, and Fiorini has pulled in $15,400.
The winner of that primary faces Republican Cori Fournier in the general.
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 1, 2016.