FL-27: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to retire from Congress

[publicunofficial]

Well that's not good.  That district is now going to be very competitive.

Very Competitive???  No.   FL-27 voted 59-39 Clinton.    This should be one of the easiest districts in the whole country for Dems to flip without IRL,  especially with Trump in the White House.

The GOP machine in Miami-Dade is still a force to be reckoned with. I'll put it as a toss-up for now.

[publicunofficial]

IRL's compassion for transgendered people was only matched by her zealously rabid defense of Israel.

[publicunofficial]

I once had to read Jose Rodriguez's Twitter history to find dirt. Nothing there.

In your experience, are most oppo researchers intern-level or are there plenty of grizzled pros? (Asking for a writing project)

Interns for most low level stuff/introductory queries. When the Rubio gay porn rumors surfaced they were very eager to take everything I had and ship it off to someone with the resources (and the will) to search for the possible tapes in Miami's seedy gay underbelly. Nothing ever came from it.

I'm picturing you having to sit in a dark room pouring over hours and hours of gay pornography looking for Marco Rubio. It's a fun mental image.

[publicunofficial]

IRL issues a brutal statement on Trumpcare:

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I imagine this will appear in ads against the two other SoFL Republicans.

Curbello will have a race on his hands. Diaz-Balart is untouchable though.

No,  I expect they'll both be competitive.   Diaz-Balart is not an entrenched incumbent, and FL-25 isn't heavily conservative anymore.

FL-25 voted for Trump and Diaz-Balart is a perfect fit. You don't need multiple decades to become entrenched.

I had hoped that redistricting would strip away the Everglades portion of the seat and make it a compact Hialeah-based seat contained entirely in Miami Dade, but it was not to be.

[publicunofficial]

FL-25 only barely voted for Trump and that was because of the Collier County portion which is more Republican than Miami-Dade County. More likely than not it will be contested, since Democrats have a limited offense list to play from.

Take a bare Trump win and add Diaz-Balart performing at least 10 points better among hispanics and that district looks a lot less contestable.

[publicunofficial]

Seems unlikely, but possible. Are there any other R seats that could flip or are those the only ones?

The next closest seats would be FL-06, FL-12, FL-16, and FL-03. All of those are pretty damn unlikely.