Several South Florida incumbents go unchallenged, earn reelection to House
Image via Coral Springs Talk.

Dan Daley
The qualifying deadline for state legislative candidates was Friday at noon.

Friday’s noon qualifying deadline has come and passed, leaving six South Florida incumbents unchallenged and heading to another term.

Reps. Dan Daley of House District 97, Michael Gottlieb of House District 98, Evan Jenne of House District 99, Joe Geller of House District 100, James Bush III of House District 109 and Michael Grieco of House District 113, all Democrats, will retain their seats for another two years.

Gottlieb and Grieco are both coming off their freshman terms, while Jenne first joined the House in 2006.

Jenne represented House District 100 from 2006-2012 and was Democratic Whip from 2006-2008. After two years away from the House, he returned with a victory in 2014.

Daley, meanwhile, has yet to serve a full term after securing the HD 97 seat during a Special Election in February 2019. he was unopposed in that contest as well. Daley, however, did not officially take office until June 2019 because of House rules.

That delay caused the seat to go without representation during the 2019 Legislative Session. Daley went through his first full Session earlier this year.

Daley served as a Coral Springs Commissioner before his election to the House.

Gottlieb took over in HD 98 after winning the 2018 Democratic primary. He then defeated Republican Joseph Anthony Cruz in the 2018 general election. Gottlieb is a criminal defense lawyer in Davie.

Grieco emerged from a contested Democratic primary in 2018 before easily winning election over Republican Jonathan Parker in the general election.

Geller took over the HD 100 seat in 2014. He’ll now head into his final term before facing term limits.

Bush has had a couple of stints in the House. He most recently won the HD 109 seat in 2018. Two Democrats and a Libertarian candidate had filed to challenge Bush for the seat, though none qualified.

All six candidates — to varying degrees — would have been favorites in a November general election match-up. That means the most likely challenge to any candidate would have emerged in a Democratic primary. No contenders decided to mount such a challenge, however.

Ryan Nicol

Ryan Nicol covers news out of South Florida for Florida Politics. Ryan is a native Floridian who attended undergrad at Nova Southeastern University before moving on to law school at Florida State. After graduating with a law degree he moved into the news industry, working in TV News as a writer and producer, along with some freelance writing work. If you'd like to contact him, send an email to [email protected].



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