Ryan Nicol
Former Republican Congressman David Rivera has failed to qualify in his run for House District 105 despite pouring in $360,000 into his own campaign.
Rivera was one of four candidates slated to run for the open seat. The qualifying deadline for state House races was noon Friday.
Rivera’s campaign was sure to attract attention as he faced a civil lawsuit filed by the FEC last year over allegations he sent at least $69,000 secretly to the campaign of Justin Lamar Sternad. Sternad was allegedly posing as a straw candidate in the 2012 Democratic primary to help weaken Rivera’s general election opponent for Florida’s 25th Congressional District. Rivera would go on to lose that race.
That FEC suit led to a period late last year where Rivera appeared to be dodging U.S. Marshals attempting to serve him with the lawsuit.
After loaning or contributing $360k to his Florida House campaign, it sounds like @RepRivera wont qualify. pic.twitter.com/oVrmiV1q5I
— Matt Dixon (@Mdixon55) June 22, 2018
Rivera also previously served in the Florida House for four terms.
He attempted to return to the state House in 2016 when he ran against Robert Asencio for House District 118. Asencio narrowly won that election by just 54 votes.
Now, it looks like Rivera’s latest run will also fail due to his inability to qualify for the HD 105 race.
HD 105 covers portions of Broward, Miami-Dade and Collier counties. Candidates are seeking to replace term-limited Republican Carlos Trujillo.
