NRCC labels Margaret Good’s campaign hire a ‘socialist’

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Kevin Lata also works with Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

National Republicans offered their own brand of congratulations to Democrat Margaret Good’s campaign manager.

They called him and his boss socialists.

“After receiving the support of the socialist-Democrats in Washington, Margaret Good has doubled down on socialism,” said Camille Gallo, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson, in a mass email.

“Reports indicate she’s hired a Bernie Sanders political operative to run her campaign.”

That came after Good announced the hire of Kevin Lata, first reported by Florida Politics, as campaign manager. Lata also works as an Iowa field director for Vermont Sen. Sanders’ presidential campaign. He similarly worked on Sanders’ 2016 campaign as well.

Sanders, an independent in the Senate who caucuses with Democrats, has self-identified as a Democratic socialist. He continues to be a favorite of the party’s left wing.

Polls show Sanders polling consistently in second or third place among an especially large field of Democrats. He and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren compete for the second-place spot behind former Vice President Joe Biden.

Good has often presented herself as a moderate and currently serves in the state House. She made national headlines in 2018 when she won a district where President Donald Trump had won by 4 percent over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

But she has been painted by Republicans as a left-winger. Now, she’s challenging U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a seven-term incumbent, in Florida’s 16th Congressional District.

Trump won the Congressional district by about 10 percent. Buchanan also won by 10 points the last time he ran, besting Democrat David Shapiro in 2018.

The NRCC’s attack on Lata comes a couple of weeks after another blast on Good, which called Washington support for the Democrat a “kiss of death.”

“Now that Margaret Good has the backing of the Washington political machine, there will be no way for her to run away from their extreme socialist agenda in a district President Trump won by double digits,” Gallo said in an August. 29 press release.

Jacob Ogles

Jacob Ogles has covered politics in Florida since 2000 for regional outlets including SRQ Magazine in Sarasota, The News-Press in Fort Myers and The Daily Commercial in Leesburg. His work has appeared nationally in The Advocate, Wired and other publications. Events like SRQ’s Where The Votes Are workshops made Ogles one of Southwest Florida’s most respected political analysts, and outlets like WWSB ABC 7 and WSRQ Sarasota have featured his insights. He can be reached at [email protected].


One comment

  • Jan

    September 11, 2019 at 5:41 pm

    Ms. Good was first elected to the state house in a special election in Feb 2018. She won the general election in Nov. 2018 to state rep. to the Florida House. Gee whiz–Now she wants to run for U.S. Congress–that’s a whopping, whole year and a half serving as state representative before her next ambition to be U.S. Congresswoman. What’s next–serving half term as Congresswoman and then running for U.S. Senate?

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