Live election updates: Democrats suffer stinging defeats in FL state House races
Florida Democrats suffered stinging defeats on Tuesday night, as Republicans trounced them in contested races that solidified the long-standing GOP majority in the Florida House of Representatives.
Republicans blocked Democrats from making any gains in the chamber despite investing $1.8 million to target voters with no party affiliation over the course of the election cycle and having outside progressive groups flood key races with millions of dollars that put the GOP on defense in areas across the state, including Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
“This year progressive groups and liberal billionaires targeted the Florida House with tens of millions of dollars. They showed up pushing their out of state agenda on Florida voters. And tonight Floridians sent them packing. Tonight was an unprecedented win for House Republicans,” said Palm Harbor Republican Rep. Chris Sprowls, the incoming House Speaker. “Against all the odds and the predictions, we proved that the best way to stand up to a bully is to fight back. Tonight we won big and received a mandate from the voters to continue to stand up for Floridians and Florida values.”
In South Florida, Democrats were unable to flip any competitive seats and appeared to be on the verge of losing two seats to Republicans by late Tuesday night. Republicans were leading in the races for House District 103 and House District 114, two seats held by Democrats.
Overall, Democrats had a significantly weaker showing than in the 2018 midterms, when they were able to pick up five seats in the House, which at the time was considered a big gain.
By comparison, Republicans were able to defend several incumbents in competitive South Florida districts.
In Miami-Dade County, Republican Rep. Vance Aloupis defended House District 115 against Democrat Franccesca Cesti-Browne, and Sweetwater Commissioner David Borrero beat Democrat Maureen Porras in the race to succeed GOP Rep. Ana Maria Rodriguez in House District 105.
In Broward County, Republican incumbent Chip LaMarca defeated Democrat Linda Thompson Gonzalez in the battle for District 93, which includes affluent coastal communities.
District 120
▪ Republican Jim Mooney appeared to be beating Democrat Clint Barras in the race for the District 120 seat, which includes some of South Miami-Dade and all of the Florida Keys.
Mooney, 69, is a real estate agent and longtime elected member of the four-island Islamorada Village Council. He was endorsed by Holly Raschein, the current District 120 representative who could not run again due to term limits.
The race will be remembered locally for the contentious Republican primary. One of his two GOP opponents, Rhonda Rebman Lopez, and her allies, were blamed for a series of bizarre negative campaign ads and mailers that targeted Mooney, calling him among other things, “a communist sympathizer.” The ads did not go over well among voters in Monroe County.
Barras is an executive with a Key West-based digital marketing company. His platform focused on the need for better affordable housing options in the Keys, climate change and improving water quality in the Everglades and Florida Bay. Although this was his first time running for office, he has served on the boards of several nonprofits and recently served as chair of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council.
District 119
▪ Republican incumbent Juan Fernandez-Barquin claimed a double-digit victory against Democratic candidate Imtiaz Ahmad Mohammad in the race to represent House District 119, which covers western Miami-Dade County.
Fernandez-Barquin, an attorney who lives in unincorporated Miami-Dade, was first elected in 2018. He filled the seat left vacant by former state Rep. Jeanette Nuñez, a Republican who now serves as Florida’s lieutenant governor.
During the 2020 legislative session, Fernandez-Barquin sponsored legislation that stripped the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence of its contract, long guaranteed in state statute, after the Miami Herald reported the former CEO had arranged to get a multimillion-dollar compensation package for herself.
District 118
▪ Republican incumbent Rep. Anthony Rodriguez was successfully reelected in a competitive district that has flipped every two years by thin margins since 2014, and went to a machine and hand recount in 2016. Rodriguez defeated Democratic challenger Ricky Junquera, 34, the vice chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.
District 118 runs north to south vertically through West Miami-Dade County, including Tamiami, Kendale Lakes, The Crossings and Richmond West.
Rodriguez, a 32-year-old business owner, won despite financial efforts from national progressive organizations like Forward Majority seeking to flip the state House blue. Rodriguez, who told the Miami Herald in an interview last month he was running to support small businesses and the expansion of charter and parochial schools, has also been a public supporter of President Donald Trump.
District 116
▪ Republican incumbent Daniel Perez successfully kept his District 116 seat after facing Democratic challenger Bob Lynch, a first-time candidate and former Wall Street bond trader, and write-in candidate Manuel Rodriguez.
District 116, a West Miami-Dade County district, runs vertically through Fountainebleau, Westchester, the main campus of Florida International University, Sunset and Kendall.
Perez, 33, is a vocal supporter of Trump and has been in office since he was first elected in 2016.
District 115
▪ Republican state Rep. Vance Aloupis fended off Democratic candidate Franccesca Cesti-Browne and was reelected to House District 115 for two more years.
House Democrats had targeted the South Florida swing seat, but were unsuccessful in trying to flip it blue. The district includes a swath of Miami-Dade from Doral to Palmetto Bay.
Aloupis, the CEO of the Children’s Movement of Florida, a nonprofit that advocates for young kids, is a Republican who has built a reputation as a moderate in the chamber and who has been a leading voice for early education policy in the Legislature.
He was elected in 2018, and has worked with Democrats to require sea-level rise studies on public construction projects before they can be built in coastal communities. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law in June.
District 114
▪ Republican candidate Demi Busatta Cabrera, a 29-year-old from Coral Gables, was leading in the race to flip House District 114 red, apparently defeating Democrat Jean-Pierre Bado.
Busatta Cabrera, a 29-year-old political newcomer, will fill the seat left vacant by former Democratic state Rep. Javier Fernandez, who resigned earlier this year to run for the Florida Senate. Fernandez lost his Senate race.
Busatta Cabrera is married to Kevin Marino Cabrera, the Florida state director for Trump’s presidential campaign. But throughout the race, she tried to develop her own brand and tried to keep Trump’s campaign-style attacks on Democrats at arm’s length. She promised to strive to work with Democrats, if elected.
District 112
▪ Democratic incumbent Rep. Nicholas Xavier Duran was leading in the race against Republican challenger and longtime South Florida politician Bruno Barreiro. This is Duran’s third win since he was first elected in 2016.
Duran, 38, is the executive director of the Florida Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, a nonprofit that serves uninsured low-income residents, and serves on the Public Health Trust Board of Trustees that oversees Jackson Health System. He ran on issues of healthcare, preparing for sea-level rise and helping rebuild small businesses after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The district extends from Brickell and Coral Gables to Virginia Key and Key Biscayne.
In an interview with the Miami Herald last month, Duran said he believed the expansion of Medicaid would be a priority in the Florida House amid the coronavirus pandemic.
District 111
▪ Republican Rep. Bryan Avila was leading in the race for House District 111 against Democratic candidate Ross Hancock.
A victory for Avila, a Broward College adjunct professor who lives in Miami Springs, lands him a third term in the Florida House representing a district in northern Miami-Dade County that includes parts of Miami and Hialeah.
Avila, a Cuban American, was first elected to the Florida House in 2014.
District 110
▪ Republican education consultant Alex Rizo, a Cuban American, defended a GOP seat, beating out Democrat teacher Annette Collazo to fill a seat made vacant by term-limited House Speaker José Oliva.
Rizo will represent House District 110, a sliver of inland Miami-Dade around Miami Lakes and Hialeah that extends to the Broward County line.
Rizo is a former teacher at Barbara Goleman Senior High School in Miami Lakes and assistant principal at Hialeah Middle, Lawton Chiles Middle and American High School. In 2006 he left the school system and founded companies that manage fee-based after-school and tutoring programs. He also runs a consulting firm that specializes in charter schools and college preparatory tutoring. He also serves as the elected vice chair of Miami-Dade County’s Community Council 5.
District 105
▪ Sweetwater Commissioner David Borrero was leading in the race to succeed GOP Rep. Ana Maria Rodriguez in House District 105, a gerrymandered South Florida district that includes parts of Broward, Miami-Dade and Collier counties.
Borrero, 31, distinguished himself among his primary opponents as the closest aligned with President Trump, touting himself as a “true conservative.” He got his start in politics as a campaign manager for the 2016 election of former Republican state Rep. Carlos Trujillo, a two-time incumbent of District 105. Borrero was elected to the Sweetwater city commission in 2017 after serving as the city’s grant administrator. Borrero also works for construction firm T&G Constructors as a project coordinator.
The swing district made for a close race, as voters are split about 32% Democrat, 32% Republican and 35% no party affiliation, according to book closing figures from the 2020 presidential primary cycle. A Democrat has not held the seat since 2012.
District 104
▪ Broward County School Board member Robin Bartleman was leading Republican George Navarini in the race to represent House District 104.
Bartleman, a Weston Democrat, will replace term-limited Democratic state Rep. Richard Stark and will represent a district in western Broward County that stretches from Pembroke Pines to the Collier County border.
Before joining the School Board, Bartleman worked as a special education teacher and assistant principal in Liberty City.
District 103
▪ Republican Tom Fabricio appeared to be headed into victory in the effort to unseat Democratic incumbent Rep. Cindy Polo in the heated state race for the West Miami-Dade County district, which runs vertically through parts of Hialeah, Hialeah Gardens, Medley, Miami Lakes, Doral, and Miramar in Broward County.
Fabricio is a 43-year-old insurance defense lawyer and political newbie. His victory puts the district back into Republican hands after Polo flipped the district unexpectedly in 2018.
Fabricio, who ran on a platform to support small businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic and curbing mine blasting efforts, cast Polo as a political outcast in her district and in Tallahassee who failed to bring consensus.
With 31 of 33 precincts reporting, Fabricio was leading in the race agianst Polo. Neither Fabricio nor Polo responded to request for comment from the Miami Herald Tuesday night.
District 101
▪ Former Miami-Dade County public administrator Marie Woodson defeated Republican candidate Vincent “Vinny” Parlatore in the race for southeastern Broward County’s House District 101.
Woodson, a Hollywood Democrat, will fill the seat left vacant by former Democratic Rep. Shevrin Jones, who on Tuesday night was elected to serve in the Florida Senate. Woodson won the Democratic primary race in August with 37.2% of the votes, beating out West Park Vice Mayor Brian Johnson and Pembroke Park Mayor Ashira Mohammed for the nomination.
After the primary election, Woodson significantly outraised and outspent Parlatore, of Pembroke Pines, in the months leading to the Nov. 3 election.
District 96
▪ Parkland Mayor Christine Hunschofsky, a Democrat who ran unopposed in the general election, will fill a seat left by Democrat Kristin Jacobs, who died of cancer in April.
Hunschofsky, who campaigned with support from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School families in Parkland, beat sole opponent Saima Farooqui in the Democratic primary back in August. She will represent House District 96, which includes Parkland and parts of Coral Springs, Coconut Creek, Margate and Pompano Beach.
Hunschofsky has been the mayor of Parkland since 2016. She held the post during the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead and 17 others injured. Some of her priorities on the campaign trail included pushing for gun control measures and making fixes to the state’s unemployment system.
District 93
▪ Incumbent Republican Chip LaMarca won a second term in the Florida House, beating Democrat Linda Thompson Gonzalez in the battle to represent House District 93 in Broward County.
LaMarca was elected to the Florida House in 2018. Previously, he served on the Lighthouse Point City Commission and the Broward County Commission. This election cycle, the Republican had the backing of key groups like the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Associated Industries of Florida and the Associated Builders and Contractors.
Thompson Gonzalez, a retired foreign service officer, faced off with LaMarca in what Democrats had seen as a potential toss-up seat. But Thompson Gonzalez ended up trailing LaMarca by double digits with all precincts reporting.
District 92
▪ Patricia Hawkins-Williams, a Lauderdale Lakes Democrat, was reelected to represent House District 92, which includes eight cities between Dixie Highway and Florida’s Turnpike in Broward County.
Hawkins-Williams, 54, defeated Nancy St. Clair, a 33-year-old who ran as a candidate with no party affiliation.
Hawkins-Williams was first elected to the House in 2016. She currently serves as the Democratic ranking member for the PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee.
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 10:33 PM.