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

[Vosem]

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

What every Congressman should strive for

And, yeah, considering this district narrowly voted for Murphy over Rubio, voted for Hillary by 20 points (rather more than the 15-point margin by which Trump won MN-1), reduced IRL to her first single-digit win in 2016 since the 1980s, is increasingly becoming other kinds of Hispanic besides Cuban, and will be fought in a Trump midterm...it's really hard to see Republicans holding this. Likely D, maybe, to take into account the strength of the Dade machine, but even they can't work miracles.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Crist/ATG carried this seat against Scott/CLC by 7 points in the 2014 environment, which doesn't make me optimistic. But CLC has a long background in local politics here, and held down a pretty unfavorable state House seat in Miami in the 2000s-era. We could definitely do worse.

[Vosem]

So who's going to run in this seat for the Democrats? Annette Taddeo was their candidate here in 2008, when she was crushed by IRL, and she lost the neighboring FL-26 primary in 2016 (even though she lives in this district) even though she was strongly supported by the DCCC. That's someone the Democrats have been wanting to promote for a long time, and this race would be very logical for her. Another very logical name would be state Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez, who represents most of this area in the state Senate, and narrowly knocked off the incumbent Republican by 3 points in 2016 (say what you will about Trump's success nationwide, or even in Florida, the predicted Democratic wave did hit here). IRL's 2016 opponent, who came fairly close, Scott Fuhrman, is already running, but he was a first-time candidate in 2016 and he's not Hispanic, so he's not likely to be a primary winner.

Any other obvious possibilities?