Demi Busatta Cabrera adds another $23K in bid for HD 114

Republican candidate Demi Busatta Cabrera collected another $23,000 in January as she competes to replace Democratic state Rep. Javier Fernández in House District 114.

That total builds on a $56,000 haul by Busatta Cabrera in December. She has added just over $80,000 since joining the race in early December.

Busatta Cabrera, a former legislative assistant to Sen. Anitere Flores, entered the contest alongside former congressional candidate Michael Hepburn. Hepburn competed in the Democratic primary in Florida’s 27th Congressional District in 2018. But he appears to have withdrawn his HD 114 candidacy, as his name no longer appears on the Division of Elections website.

With Hepburn gone, Jean-Pierre Bado is the only Democratic candidate remaining in the race.

Busatta Cabrera courted a trio of $1,000 donations from three political committees backed by GOP Senators. Sen. Kelli Stargel‘s group, Limited Govt for a Stronger Florida, gave $1,000. Florida Conservative Alliance, a PAC backed by Sen. Aaron Bean, also gave $1,000, as did Sen. Kathleen Passidomo‘s PAC, Working Together for Florida.

The Busatta Cabrera campaign has spent less than $10,000 so far, leaving her with more than $70,000 still on hand.

That’s well ahead of the Bado’s pace. He joined the race in November, adding $12,500. But he collected just over $7,000 in the ensuing months. That leaves him with less than $20,000 raised in his three months as a candidate.

Bado has less than $18,000 of that remaining.

Fernández took the HD 114 seat in a 2018 special election with a 5-point win over Republican Andrew Vargas. Six months later, Fernandez defeated lawyer Javier Enriquez by 6 percentage points, earning Fernández his first full term. Fernández is giving up the seat to run for Senate District 39.

The previous two elections imply a Democratic lean for the district, which covers parts of Miami-Dade County including West Miami and Cutler Bay.

But Busatta Cabrera appears to have the full backing of the Republican establishment, giving her a shot at flipping the seat for the GOP.