Tuesday’s Primary was a good night for Miami-Dade incumbents. Here are the results

Image via Jesse Scheckner.

Florida Politics covered a fair share of Miami-Dade’s Primary races Tuesday, when Mayor Daniella Levine Cava avoided a runoff with a commanding share of the vote and the bloated Sheriff’s race shrank to two candidates.

Democratic School Board member Lucia Báez-Geller punched her ticket to a November clash with Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar. Former state Rep. J.C. Planas, a Republican-turned-Democrat, beat two Primary opponents to secure his spot on the ballot against GOP state Rep. Alina García for Supervisor of Elections.

Educator Wallace Aristide won a six-way contest for the deep-blue House District 107 seat that Christopher Benjamin left for a judgeship run. State Rep. Ashley Gantt earned another two years serving House District 109 by whooping two former lawmakers, both fellow Democrats, who tried to unseat her.

In House District 106, Republican state Rep. Fabián Basabe drubbed an underfunded Primary challenger, but he’ll still have to get past former Democratic state Rep. Joe Saunders in the General Election. In House District 115, a money disadvantage didn’t prove insurmountable for Republican firefighter Omar Blanco, who faces Democrat Norma Perez Schwartz in November for the seat García is vacating.

Incumbents Rob Gonzalez and Keon Hardemon each beat two challengers to win second terms on the Miami-Dade Commission. Their colleague, Raquel Regalado, led in votes Tuesday, but not enough to avoid another runoff with former Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner.

Many other races reached conclusions of varying decisiveness last night. Let’s take a look.

Congressional

In a Republican race for the right to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson in Florida’s 24th Congressional District, which spans parts of Miami-Dade and Broward, Jesus Gabriel Navarro beat Patti Gonzalez by 14 percentage points (9,581 votes) to clinch a spot on the Nov. 5 ballot.

U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart of Florida’s 26th Congressional District crushed two Republican Primary challengers, Richard Evans and Johnny Fratto, with 91.5% of 25,805 votes cast in his favor. Díaz-Balart will face Democrat Joey Atkins in November.

Salazar performed almost just as well, capturing 89% of the vote against Primary opponent Royland Lara in Florida’s 27th Congressional District.

Tax Collector

Former state Rep. David Richardson is the lone Democrat in the race for county Tax Collector, and on Tuesday local business owner and Miami-Dade Community Council member Dariel Fernandez emerged as his Republican opponent. Fernandez beat ex-Hialeah Council member Bryan Calvo with a 52% share of 105,291 votes cast in the contest.

School Board

District 9 Miami-Dade School Board member Luisa Santos, who with Báez-Geller’s departure is now inarguably the panel’s most progressive member, beat back Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidate Kimberly Beltran with 62% of the vote.

Two other School Board races still pend resolution. In District 3, former Democratic state Rep. Joe Geller and Republican-turned-independent Martin Karp, the dean of a private schools group, respectively took 33% and 32% of the vote in a four-way contest that saw just 239 votes separating them. They’ll now head to a runoff.

So will appointed District 7 School Board member Mary Blanco, who is heading to the runoff with public school teacher-turned-tech exec Max Tuchman after neither broke the 50%-vote threshold to win outright in a three-way Primary contest. Blanco, a Republican Catholic school guidance counselor whom Gov. Ron DeSantis placed on the Board in January 2023, took 45% of 35,057 votes. Tuchman, a Democrat, took 32%.

Courts

Two races for bench posts on the 11th Judicial Circuit Court reached definitive conclusions Tuesday night. In Group 8, former Judge Jason Bloch defeated Bonita Jones-Peabody, a former Assistant Public Defender now in private practice, 62% to 38%. In Group 29, Assistant State Attorney-turned-civil litigator Heloiza Correa outpaced family law lawyer Cristobal Padron 52% to 48%.

Voters also kept an incumbent County Court Judge in place and narrowed the race for another bench position there to two candidates. In Group 31, Judge Christopher Green, a longtime government lawyer appointed by DeSantis in December 2022, successfully defended his job by defeating challenger Rita Maria Baez with 51% of the vote.

In Group 29, Benjamin and fellow lawyer Alina Restrepo are bound for a runoff after neither received a large enough share of the vote. Benjamin led the race with 39% of 253,214 votes cast, while Restrepo took 36%. Former Judge Scott Janowitz placed third with 25% of the vote and has since endorsed Benjamin.

Ballot questions

Miami-Dade voters also wieghed in on a pair of ballot questions. The first, a nonbinding straw poll, asked whether the county should prioritize expanding its rapid transit system; 78.5% of voters said yes.

The second asked voters whether the county should construct a new fire station in Miami Beach’s Flamingo Park. Seventy-six percent of voters said yes.

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Vote-by-mail participation has plummeted in Miami-Dade, which may account for a significant drop in countywide Primary participation compared to four years ago. By Tuesday, 288,212 of Miami-Dade’s 1.47 million registered voters (19.5%) cast ballots in the Primary. In 2020, 423,888 of nearly 1.5 million registered voters in the county (28%) did so.

Primary participation in 2016 and 2012 was more in line with this year’s figures, however, with 20.5% of 1.3 million voters in 2016 and 20% of 1.24 million voters in 2012 casting Primary ballots.