Issue #142: Democrats outperform in Miami-Dade Special Election

HD118 gave surpising results

Last night, Miami-Dade held a special election for House District 118. This is an 85% Hispanic seat located in the Southwest end of the county. It is also 53% Cuban. It was expected to be an easy GOP hold, with most observers blowing off any upset chances. Well, this Trump +17 seat did not flip, but the democrats wound up with a MASSIVE over-performance - one so big I am delaying sleep to write this post now.

Lets delve in

House District 118 Background

HD118 covers unincorporated parts of Miami-Dade. In its north is the community of Kendale Lakes, while further south is Three Lakes and South Miami Heights. Like so much of Miami-Dade, it is a district that once looked very promising for Democrats in 2016, but has since swung to the right. After Clinton won the seat by 10 points, Biden lost the district by 17. This was heavily fueled by drops in Hispanic support.

In 2022, amid horrendous Democratic turnout, which I documented here, Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio won the district by well over 30 points! That same day, Republican incumbent Juan Fernandez-Barquin defeat Democrat Johnny Gonzalo Farias 68-32.

The long-term trend in the district can be seen below. The seat had been swingish heading through 2016, but began to trend right.

In June of this year, the longtime Miami-Dade Clerk of Court, Harvey Ruvin, passed away. DeSantis opted to pick Fernandez-Barquin to replace the Clerk. As a result, a special election needed to be called for the house seat.

Both parties avoided primaries, as Republican Mike Redondo was the only GOP candidate to file. Democrats, meanwhile, had 2022 nominee Johnny Gonzalo Farias file again. Redondo is a personal injury attorney and the son of Cuban exiles. Farias is an electrician with support in the construction industry. He served on the Redland Community Council (a special district in the south of the county) and previously ran for county commission.

Both candidates focused on affordability issues, with culture war stuff not being played up as much. Redondo had more financial backing, raising around $260,000 via several committees, while Farias raised around $80,000.

Heading into election day, turnout was low, likely to hit 7-8%, and no one expected a real upset. Honestly for Democrats a 10-15 point loss would be stellar. The question was would Democrats do better than 2020, or be closer to the 2022 landslides.

The Results

The first batch of results already indicated a much closer-than-expected race. Redondo only led by around 5% with the early/absentees. It was expected election day would be a bit more GOP, which it was. In the end, Redondo only won by just over 6% - a FAR cry form Trump’s 17%.

Farias trailed by just over 500 votes.

So what is the story here? Well, first off, turnout actually favored Democrats for once. Democratic turnout was just under 10%, better than the GOP’s 8.5%

It’s especially notably that despite the GOP having over 800 more voters casting ballots, Redondo only won by 500. This means the small batch of NPAs broke solidly for Farias. This assumes similar party loyalties.

Now, to be clear, this turnout is obviously hyper-low (but not unusual for Dade in specials). This is not predictive for 2024. However, it shows Democrats were more motivated than Republicans, that is just a fact. It is also a critical improvement from 2022’s turnout, where the Hispanic seats of Miami-Dade all saw much higher GOP turnout. In HD118 in 2022, the GOP turnout was 22 points higher than Democrats.

This table comes from one of several articles I did on 2022 turnout.

No doubt, small turnout regardless, this was a stellar outcome for Democrats. This is essentially a 10 point swing from 2020.

Looking Ahead

Folks will want to look to 2024 immediately. However, it is worth noting that this is one election and it was low turnout. However, the turnout situation and large swing still shows Democrats were motivated more than Republicans, and that is a good start.

This also comes after Democrats flipped the Jacksonville Mayor’s race earlier this year.

So this over-performance can piggy-back off the Jacksonville results and show that Florida Democrats still have some life. This is good not just for fundraising but also for energizing volunteers and encouraging candidates to file.

The next big test in Florida will be January 16th. On that day, voters will go to the polls in Orlando’s HD35, a seat that Biden won by 5%.

This district covers Orange and Osceola (but seriously 80% of its vote is Orange, that Osceola is alot of empty land). Democrats are hoping to flip this seat, which was held by Republican Fred Hawkins.

There is definitely a reason to think Democrats can flip this seat. Republicans know this too, as DeSantis scheduled this race for the day AFTER the Iowa caucuses. Despite the vacancies for HD118 and HD35 coming around the same time, Ron held off on this special, the more likely to flip, till after his make-or-break moment in Iowa.

As I wrote about here, where I discuss HD35 in detail, DeSantis likely did not want a loss of a GOP seat to hurt him leading up to Iowa. Read more on that here.

Now there is no guarantee of a Democratic win in HD35. However, this result should give some motivation for the Democrats there and across the state. Democratic nominee Tom Keen (website) will face Republican Erika Booth. I have that race as a tossup right now. Democrats should not get over-confident and hence complacent. Following this with a HD35 win would be a big boost. Expect the FL GOP to throw money at that race to try and avoid a flip.

Just over a month to go until that election!