Azure ocean waters may have been washing up on Florida's shores on Election Day, but there definitely was no "blue wave."
Joe Biden won Miami-Dade with 54% of the votes, but the state of Florida, and its 29 Electoral College votes, went to President Donald Trump. In fact, Republicans did some serious damage to Democrats' hopes — and assumptions.
In Miami-Dade, Democrats hit a wall in their efforts to hold seats or flip them blue, whether in the U.S. Congress or in the Florida Legislature.
In other words, Biden's victory — he had 617,201 votes in Miami-Dade — failed to provide a foundation on which other Democratic candidates could stand. The only Democrat with a liberal bent that benefited was Daniella Levine Cava — and her race for mayor of Miami-Dade was nonpartisan.
The biggest blow was the loss in two congressional districts in southern Miami-Dade. Democratic congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell lost to term-limited Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. And district neighbor Rep. Donna Shalala, a well-known Democrat, was defeated by Spanish-language television personality Maria Elvira Salazar.
Both congresswomen had been targeted by Republican ads accusing them of being too liberal or corrupt or socialists. At his acceptance speech, Gimenez summed it up:
"This victory is a rejection of extremism, a rejection of partisanship and of socialism." Yes, the normally commonsense mayor said that.
DEMS DON'T PUNCH BACK
Once again, Democrats here allowed themselves to be defined, and failed to adequately punch back against the baseless accusations.
The Democrats' dismissal of Republicans labeling opponents "socialist" as just silliness that voters will surely ignore was naive. It works, especially with a Hispanic bloc that includes Cuban Americans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, voters who know that socialism and communism are intertwined. They're in Miami-Dade because their countries fell under those socialists regimes.
Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer wrote Thursday that: "Biden failed to court Cuban American and Venezuelan American voters. He did almost everything wrong." Yep, at least on that score. "Biden's campaign underestimated the negative impact of President Trump's absurd claim that Biden is a 'socialist.' Instead of proposing a pro-active plan to help restore democracy in Cuba and Venezuela, Biden just played defense, saying "I am not a socialist," Oppenheimer said.
OBAMA COMES TO TOWN
Democrats sent former President Barack Obama to Miami-Dade on Monday, the day before Election Day, to help court the vote. Though he was sent to rouse the faithful, he's not popular with conservative Cuban Americans because he reopened relations with the Castro government. Another inadvertent fumble by the Democratic Party.
The lack of a blue wave ended all chances that any seats in the Florida Legislature would be flipped.
In fact, Democrats lost a seat. Incumbent State Rep. Cindy Polo, a Democrat representing District 102, lost her seat to Republican Tom Fabricio, an attorney and newcomer to politics.
And in a super-close race in State Senate District 37, Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez, a state senator running for reelection was behind Republican newcomer Ileana Garcia — by 21 votes. A recount has been ordered in the race.
Democrats need a new, improved playbook that confronts, not dismisses, the reality of many Hispanics' legitimate fears.
