Javier Fernandez to face Ana Maria Rodriguez in ‘flippable’ SD 39 race
State Rep. Javier Fernández will advance in one of the Florida Democratic Party’s most important and winnable races on the ballot as Democrats try to achieve parity in the Senate for the first time in two decades.
Fernández’s competitor, lawyer Daniel Horton-Diaz, conceded to the South Miami Democrat at around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, citing low early polling numbers in Miami-Dade County that he said he “couldn’t quite catch” this time around.
Fernández, 45, appeared to be the winner with a comfortable margin of more than 18 percentage points over Horton-Diaz, a lawyer, with more than 93% of precincts reporting late Tuesday.
Fernández will compete with Republican opponent and fellow House member Rep. Ana Maria Rodriguez to replace term-limited Republican incumbent Anitere Flores in November. Senate District 39 is a competitive one and includes South Miami-Dade and all of Monroe County. The district voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 even though it went for Flores in the state Senate race.
“As the son of a school teacher who raised four children on her own, I saw every day what true sacrifice looks like. I also saw how our community rallied together in times of need, and I vowed to do all I could to give back to a country that had given us so much,” Fernández said in a statement Tuesday. “Tonight is another step forward on that journey.”
Throughout the campaign, Fernández, a Cuban-American attorney, has drawn on his experience in Tallahassee to court voters, referring often to legislation he backed. The experience helped him financially, too, as he courted Democratic donors as the party’s chosen candidate.
Democratic Party leaders have thrown their full support behind Fernández, and say the party’s priority continues to be ensuring he wins the seat. It’s part of a strategy to gain the three seats they need to reach an even split in Florida’s 40-member Senate. Half of Florida’s Senate seats are up for reelection in November.
Democrats flipped five South Florida seats in the past decade, which puts a greater focus on SD 39 and the question of whether Democrats can prove they can outwork their well-funded opponents.
The Florida Democratic Party and political committees like Senate Victory, the fundraising arm of the Senate Democrats, put the vast majority of their efforts into South Florida, particularly on Fernández’s race.
“Representative Javier Fernandez has been a tireless advocate for South Florida who puts the needs of the people first,” Senate Minority Leader designate Gary Farmer said in a statement Tuesday. “Tonight’s results make clear Florida Democrats are fired up and ready to vote blue for strong candidates up and down the ballot.”
The party has been behind the representative’s attempted jump from the House to the Senate since he announced his run in August 2019. Since then, he has raised $293,898 to Horton-Diaz’s $20,146.
Horton-Diaz, who worked as a legislative aide for Florida Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Florida state director for the voting rights organization All Voting is Local and served as a congressional district chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, campaigned as a candidate who said he was more in touch with the community. Last month, however, Mucarsel-Powell endorsed his opponent.
The 2020 primary is Horton-Diaz’s second run for District 39, which he left in 2016 to join the race for House District 120 that includes parts of Homestead and the Florida Keys. He won the Democratic primary but lost in the general election to Republican Rep. Holly Raschein.
His campaign mainly focused on his work in the district as a community organizer, and sometimes made digs at Fernández for not living in the district.
Fernández will need to move his family from his South Miami home in order to be eligible to become the area’s new senator. He told the Miami Herald Monday that he was looking at homes, but was only holding back in case the Legislature convenes for a special session before the November election.
If they decide to convene, Fernández could only attend in his role as a House member if he lived in House District 114.
This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 7:59 PM.