Jesse Scheckner
Miami Republican Rep. Alina Garcia is close to crossing the $500,000 mark in her bid to become Miami-Dade County’s first voter-chosen Supervisor of Elections.
Her Democratic opponent, former state Rep. J.C. Planas, has raised about a quarter of that sum while still outspending her through late September.
Between Aug. 16 and Sept. 20, the last date from which state and county campaign finance data was available Thursday, Garcia collected about $60,000 between her campaign account and political committee, Florida Always First.
Between when she won her House seat in November 2022 and Sept. 20, Garcia — a longtime GOP operative — amassed more than $492,000. She had about $426,000 left Sept. 21, part of it carry-over funds from her House campaign.
Last period, Garcia received close to 50 personal checks, including $1,000 from Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett and lawyer Tania Cruz-Giménez, the daughter-in-law of Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez who is working on Assistant Miami-Dade Police Director Rosie Cordero-Stutz’s campaign for Sheriff.
Lourdes Giménez, the Congressman’s wife, gave $100. So did Bernardo Soto, a host and executive at Spanish-language radio station Actualidad 1040.
Garcia’s biggest single gain was a $10,000 contribution from Building Florida’s Future, a PC chaired by former Alachua County GOP Chair William Stafford Jones.
The Republican Party of Monroe County gave $2,500. America First Florida First, the PC of Miami-Dade Commissioner Rob Gonzalez, donated $2,000.
Miami Firefighters PAC and Friends of Danny Alvarez, the PC of Hillsborough County Republican Rep. Danny Alvarez, chipped in $1,000 apiece.
Real estate companies again turned up for Garcia. Doral architectural firm Pascual Perez & Associates gave $2,500, as did the real estate arm of Transportation America, a company to which Miami-Dade County has outsourced many of its transit routes and special transportation services.
Other contributions included $5,000 from Miami Springs-based business management company Management Resources Inc., $5,000 from Miami-based Sunshine Gasoline Distributors, $2,500 from Univista Insurance and $1,000 from The Geo Group, a private prison operator.
Garcia spent about $93,000 last period. More than half ($51,000) went to the Republican Party of Florida as a donation.
She also spent $15,000 last month on advertising services from Miami-based The Factor and $14,000 on ads with Miami’s Community Newspapers, which publishes roughly two dozen periodicals across the county.
Another $3,000 went to Governance with Integrity, a county-level PC established in March that last month also received funds from the PCs of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Hialeah Gardens Sen. Bryan Ávila and Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago — all Republicans.
The rest covered printing, video production, signs, ads, business cards, canvassing, donation-processing fees and bank fees.
Planas, an elections and ethics lawyer with an eponymous case law on Florida’s books, raised a comparatively modest $9,000 from Aug. 16-Sept. 20 between his campaign account and political committee, Protecting the Right to Vote in Miami-Dade County.
He also spent close to $15,000.
Sixteen personal checks went to Planas’ campaign last period ranging from $10 to $1,000. One of his maxed-out donors was David Winker, a fellow lawyer known for his activist work.
Rebranding Politics, the PC of Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, kicked in $2,500.
The lion’s share of Planas’ spending last month ($11,000) went to a pair of companies, EDGE Communications and WIN Canvass, owned and operated by his senior campaign adviser, Christian Ulvert. Services rendered included outreach, ads and staffing.
Planas also paid $520 to consultant Michael Worley’s Plantation-based MDW Communications for collateral production.
The rest of his spending funded campaign apparel, web fees, access to voter rolls, voter outreach, donation-processing fees and bank fees.
Between when he entered the Supervisor of Elections race in July 2023 and Sept. 20, Planas raised $124,000. He had $9,000 of that remaining Sept. 21.
He’s also getting help from an outside PC called Friends of JC Planas, which added $500,000 in September 2023 from a single source: Miami mortgage loan originator Eduardo Fernandez, a family friend of Planas’. The PC, with which Planas has denied direct affiliation, spent $18,000 through late last month on text messages supporting his campaign.
A former Republican, Planas left the GOP after the first impeachment of Donald Trump, citing the ex-President’s attacks on voting rights and lies that the election was stolen as key factors in his departure.
Trump has endorsed Garcia.
Miami-Dade voters abolished several constitutional officers, including Supervisor of Elections, Tax Collector and Property Appraiser, with the adoption of the county’s Home Rule Charter in 1957. The charter delegated those offices’ powers to Miami-Dade’s top executive official, now the Mayor, who has appointed people to those posts.
But in 2018, Florida voters — including 58% of Miami-Dade voters — approved a constitutional amendment requiring every county in the state to elect those officers, as well as Sheriff, by Jan. 7, 2025.
Miami-Dade’s current Supervisor of Elections, Christina White, opted not to run for the job she’s held since 2015.
The General Election is on Nov. 5. Mail-in voting is ongoing. Early voting runs Oct. 21-Nov. 3.
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