Six Democrats seek up-for-grabs Senate seat in jam-packed South Florida primary
When voters in Senate District 35, which encompasses parts of northern Miami-Dade and southern Broward counties fill out a mail ballot or head to the polls on August 18, they will see a slate of familiar candidates.
The Democratic primary race to replace term-limited Sen. Oscar Braynon has attracted no less than four Tallahassee veterans — state representatives Shevrin Jones and Barbara Watson, former Rep. Cynthia Stafford and former Sen. Daphne Campbell. Miami Gardens City Councilman Erhabor Ighodaro is also running. They all have established platforms, a base of voters and experience on the campaign trail.
Whoever wins the primary will receive what is all but a golden ticket to winning the general election come November, where they will face write-in opponent Darien Hill, an independent who has been essentially inactive in the race.
Sometimes candidates who can’t afford to pay the qualifying fee file as a write-in candidate instead. The fee for a state Senate candidate is $1,781.82 for a Democrat or Republican and $1,187.88 for an independent.
The voters in District 35 are split essentially evenly between the two counties. But of the six primary candidates four are in Miami-Dade, while state Rep. Shevrin Jones, is the lone Broward candidate who has been active on the campaign trail.
Also running in the primary is retired firefighter Wilbur Harbin, of Miramar, who has raised just $700. Harbin declined a Miami Herald interview request.
Elected in other races within the district
Watson and Stafford have represented slivers of the district before, and say their names are trusted in the community, where people want to vote for people they already know. While Campbell represented the neighboring Senate district in her time in the Legislature, her frequent appearances on local radio programming, her larger-than-life community presence and her memorable songs and music videos make her a name hard to forget, especially in the Haitian community that makes up a large swath of the district.
The three women have won elections in the area before, and Watson says the name recognition goes a long way in the community. That said, she jumped into the race two days before the qualifying period ended and acknowledges that she has some catching up to do.
She says many endorsement commitments have already been made, and that some of her supporters from other races “held their nose and wrote a check” for Jones, who she considers a main opponent.
But Watson, who has been walking in the district and making calls, said she’s heard from voters who may have donated to one candidate but are shifting their support to her.
“I’ve been welcomed by some people who thought they had made their minds up and are telling me they are reassessing,” she said. “There is a segment in this district where I have worked as an activist and they remember those efforts.”
Watson was elected to the House in 2011 and has been reelected each term since. Before that, she served on the Miami Gardens City Council.
Stafford, an attorney and professor, served three terms in the state House from 2010 to 2016.
Campbell served three terms in the state House and one in the state Senate until she was defeated by now-Sen. Jason Pizzo in the 2018 Democratic primary election.
Her eight years in the Legislature were colorful, marked by conservative-leaning votes on abortion, gay rights, school prayer and charter schools that left her on the outs with Democrats. During that time she became entangled in investigations and ethics complaints, including when she filed a bill to ban red light cameras shortly after her husband’s minivan racked up five red light tickets.
In 2018, Miami Herald reporting showed she claimed to reside at a string of addresses ever since her North Miami Beach home was excluded from House District 108, which she represented, in 2012. For three years, she was registered to vote at a property where her lease had expired, her former landlord told the Herald.
Neither Stafford nor Campbell responded to multiple phone requests from the Miami Herald.
Biggest constituencies
That said, they all represent small parts of the district and will compete for slivers of the vote. The only candidates who already represent large swaths of the district are Ighodaro in Miami-Dade and Jones in Broward.
Though Jones now represents Broward County, he spent his childhood in Carol City, now Miami Gardens. He eventually became a science teacher, first entering politics in 2010 when he ran and lost an election for Broward County Commission District 8 against Barbara Sharief, who went on to become county mayor.
In 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018, Jones ran unopposed for his House seat. He is the only Black, gay lawmaker in the state Legislature.
Jones has become a regular voice on progressive issues for Democrats statewide. He appears on cable news, goes viral on social media for passionate floor speeches and has even hosted Facebook Live events with former vice president and presidential candidate Joe Biden. Jones has earned the endorsement of nearly every Democratic senator, the Miami Gardens mayor and various progressive groups across the state.
He has a certain campaign trail star power that his fans and consultants on other races compare to other energetic Democrats like onetime gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum or top Florida Democrat, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.
Some say Jones is running a campaign that is too high off the ground. CNN viewers don’t necessarily know he’s running for state senate.
But Jones doesn’t see it that way.
“People want a candidate that they can see is fighting for them,” he told the Miami Herald. “Behind the scenes work is fine, but people need to see someone fighting for them right now, on the scene, they can touch that person.”
The representative, who recently recovered from having COVID-19, said he hopes that the people know that he fought for them for the last eight years, and that he is not “new to the game.”
Jones, his parents and his brother were all infected with the disease, putting a damper on his campaign. He’s frequently appeared on television from his home and posted daily updates on social media, talking about the state’s response to the illness as well as his own symptoms.
“Our goal is communicating with voters,” he said.
Braynon, who has endorsed Jones, said he thinks he can win the race if he figures out how to “weaponize” his popularity.
“Shev can pull it off with some well-placed stuff,” he said. “His is the type of message that will resonate.”
Ighodaro, the Miami Gardens city councilman, has jabbed at Jones for his frequent media appearances. He says the community is suspect of those who get attention from what he calls “white media” and that in his eyes, a CNN appearance or a newspaper endorsement is a bad look.
Willis Howard, a Miami Gardens consultant who is running Ighodaro’s campaign, said, “CNN is great. But you won’t bring us any money home. That doesn’t benefit black folks. Folks down here see through that.”
Howard, who is running nine other local campaigns across Miami-Dade County, was paid $5,000 for consulting services by Jones in May 2019 but has not worked for him since, he said.
Jones has outraised Ighodaro by nearly three times: $271,419 to the councilman’s $96,067.
But Ighodaro says he is more focused on building community trust and reaching out to voters he already represents. He has the name identification, he says, which comes from years of local efforts.
Ighodaro, who is Nigerian, said he’s lost elections before because of his “strange name.” Now that people know him, they won’t “make mistakes” by choosing his name on the ballot.
“I don’t worry about outcomes when I’ve done the work,” he said. “People are creatures of habit. They’ll go with who they know.”