My take on Florida's Legislative races in 2010 (Part 1: Florida Senate)

[Mississippi Political Freak]

As we all know, the GOP has taken veto-proof majorities in both chambers in Florida's State Legislature.  They picked up 2 seats in the Senate and 5 seats in the House.  The only difference is that both Senate gains are through open seat pickups, while the House gains are achieved exclusively by defeating Democratic incumbents.

Here's my analysis of last November's results on competitive/prominent Florida Senate races:

SD-8 (Dem Target)

Deborah Gianoulis, the Dem candidate and a former local news anchor, is well-known and decently funded.  However, Sen. John Thrasher is a household name in state GOP circles (he's one time state house speaker and more recently, a caretaker state GOP chair), his incumbancy and the First Coast (St. Augustine, Jacksonville etc.) district's GOP-lean is enough for him to hold on comfortably.

SD-14 (Dem Target)

The Dem candidate here, Perry C. McGriff Jr. is a former one-term from state representative from  Gainesville.  He may be white and more moderate than Ed Jennings, the 2006 candidate and also from Gainesville.  However, incumbent Steve Olerich is a former Alachua County (Gainesville) Sheriff, and the district's makeup mean that a Gainesville Dem is a liability in the rural portions of the district, unless he/she is a Rod Smith-type law-and-order candidate (Correctional facilities are significant to the SD's economy).  As the rural parts of the district (including rural Alachua outside Gainesville, which contributed to the ouster of an incumbent Dem County Commissioner) turned hard right and the two candidates shared the Alachua County base, the Dem was held to a narrow victory there while losing some rural counties at a 2-1 margin, enabling Oelrich to hold on by 54%-46%

SD-16 (GOP Target)

Sen. Charlie Justice's ill-fated challange to  US Rep. Bill CW Young for CD-10 left this open seat highly vulnerable.  The GOP's candidate, former Sen. Jack Latvala is relatively moderate, has high name ID and extremely well-funded (he's the ex-husband of Pinellas County Commissioner Susan Latvala). He probably represented about the same area in his previous tenure.  On the other hand, the Dem picked Nina Hayden, a young African American female and a first-term Pinellas County School Board member.  Her woeful fundraising capability, thin resume, race (sort of) and Alex Sink's underperformance in the Tampa Bay area mean that Hayden never stood much chance.  And Latvala returned to the State Senate in the biggest landslide of all prominent State Senate races last year.

SD-25 (Dem Target)

The Tea Party surge in coastal Palm Beach and Broward counties has probably undermined the Dem's offensive effort at the legislative seats there. While this is the most GOP-friendly area in South Florida outside Cuban portions of Miami-Dade county, the GOPer's tends to be strongly pro-business but socially moderate.  However, as fiscal issues became salient during last November, the GOP/Tea Party coalition were able to ride the popular dissent to unseat US Rep. Ron Klein in CD-22 and undermine the supposedly solid effort from State Rep. Kelly Skidmore to take now-CFO Jeff Attwater's open seat.  The GOP victor, Ellyn Bogdanoff is, admittedly a powerful State Rep. from coastal Broward and extremely well-funded as well.  More of the same happened in HD-91 (Bogdanoff's open seat) and Borard County Commission District 4.

SD-27 (GOP Target)

SD-27 is a heavily gerrymandered seat formed with leftover parts of various counties happened to be the the most swingy State Senate seat. Campaigns there are mainly fought at two fronts, the Dem-heavy western Palm Beach County and the GOP-friendly eastern Lee County.  When Dave Aronberg (my former State Sen. who ran unsuccessfully in the Dem primary for Attorney General) faced Lee County GOPer's in his races, his is able to win the Palm Beach portion hands down (by 2-1 to 3-1) and hold the GOPer to a narrow margin in the Lee portion.  

In last year, however, both candidate are from the Palm Beach portion, thereby undercutting the advantage for the Dem candidate  (one-term State Rep. Kevin Rader)quite a bit (less than 2-1).  Coupled with the highly energized GOP vote in SW Florida (Lee Conty), where the GOP candidate, former Wellington Councilwoman Lizbeth Benacquisto won by more than 2-1; and a controversial ad from Rader's camp attacking Benacquisto's opposition to abortion rights using her history as a rape victim that deemed to be off-putting for many female voters, the GOP was finally able to pick up this marginal seat that eluded two Lee County pols (County Commissioner Frank Mann and freshman State Rep. Matt Caldwell from HD-73) with a Palm Beach candidate.

The analysis on the State House races in North, Central and Southwest Florida is up next.