Live-Blog: 2018 Miami Primary Election Results

By 7 p.m., Floridians will know whether their usually inept state Democratic Party has chosen to anoint a hard-campaigning progressive with popular, grassroots support; a rich dude with a checkered track record as Miami Beach mayor; or a well-connected but boring centrist former congresswoman as the party's next gubernatorial candidate. Republicans, in the meantime, appear ready to nominate the Donald Trump-endorsed Ron DeSantis, the human equivalent of an AR-15 wrapped in a "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt wrapped in a civil rights lawsuit subpoena.

There are a lot of candidates on today's primary ballot running for spots as congresspeople, Miami-Dade County commissioners, judges, and school board candidates. Tonight will be extremely interesting at the polls. After you vote, check back here as we fill in the results. (Scroll past the candidate list to read updates.)

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CANDIDATES (WINNER IN BOLD)

Governor

Democrats

Andrew Gillum
Gwen Graham
Philip Levine
Chris King
Jeff Greene

Republicans

Ron DeSantis
Adam Putnam

Congressional District 27

Democrats

Donna Shalala
David Richardson
Matt Haggman
Kristen Rosen Gonzalez
Michael Hepburn

Republicans

Maria Elvira Salazar
Bruno Barreiro
Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera
Angie Chirino
Gina Sosa-Suarez
Maria Peiro
Michael Ohevzion
Stephen Marks
Elizabeth Adadi

Congressional District 26

Democrats

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell
Demetries Grimes

Congressional District 23

Republicans

Joe Kaufman
Carlos Reyes
Carla Spalding

Congressional District 22

Republicans

Nicolas Kimaz
Javier Manjarres
Eddison Walters

State Senate District 38

Democrats

Daphne Campbell
Jason Pizzo

State House District 108

Democrats

Roy Hardemon
Dotie Joseph

State House District 113

Michael Grieco
Deede Weithorn
Kubs Lachlandani

Attorney General

Democrats

Sean Shaw
Ryan Torrens

Republicans

Ashley Moody
Frank White

Agriculture Commissioner

Democrats

Jeff Porter
R. David Walker
Nikki Fried

Republicans

Matt Caldwell
Denise Grimsley
Baxter Troutman
Mike McCallister

Miami-Dade County Commission

District 2

Dorrin Rolle
Jean Monsetime

District 6

Rebeca Sosa
Marilynn Vargas

District 8

Daniella Levine-Cava
Gus Barreiro
Johnathan Burke

District 10

Javier Souto
Alfred Santamaria
Julio Sanchez
Jose Garrido

District 12

Jose "Pepe" Diaz
Patricio Moreno
Rafael Pinyero

Referenda:

Jungle Island
County Mayor/Commissioner Salaries
Zoning Board of Adjustment Personnel Changes

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9:30 p.m.:

Wow. The Associated Press has called the Democratic governor's race for Andrew Gillum — the first black gubernatorial nominee in state history. Gillum ran as the only out-and-out progressive in the race, the only non-millionaire, and the only candidate to run on a clear, ideas-first, progressive platform that included abolishing ICE, making college free, and instituting Medicare for All. He had Bernie Sanders' endorsement, perhaps not surprisingly.


9 p.m.:

Gillum — who ran on abolishing ICE and instituting Medicare for All, was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, and even had the support of local labor groups and many Democratic Socialists of America activists — appears to be pulling away with the statewide Democratic gubernatorial nomination. That's absolutely wild if it holds in Florida — he'd be the first exciting Democratic candidate for governor in Florida since... maybe ever? The Florida Democrats almost exclusively run Tampa/North Florida Centrists with weird ethical scandals and moral issues plaguing their pasts. Gillum, who has admittedly moved left over time and does have an FBI-investigation scandal hanging over him, would nonetheless be the first Democratic candidate for governor in the Sunshine State to benefit from a big swell of local, young, grassroots support.

The same isn't quite true in Miami's District 27 congressional race: State lawmaker David Richardson has conceded to Donna Shalala, the former University of Miami president, Clinton Foundation leader, and U.S. secretary of health and human services under Bill Clinton.

With 87% of precincts reporting, former U.S. Health and Human Services Sec Donna Shalala has 32% of the vote to Richardson's 27%. FL Dems miss out on an opportunity to elect a real progressive. https://t.co/cN5POCv9fl

— Rebekah Entralgo Fernández (@rebekahentralgo) August 29, 2018

8:30 p.m.:

Tonight was also, technically, a Miami-Dade County Commission race, but you likely would not have noticed had New Times not brought it up. For better or for worse, very incumbent — Daniella Levine Cava, Jean Monestime, Rebeca Sosa, Javier Souto, and Jose "Pepe" Diaz — cartwheeled to victory.

Oh, and the Miami Herald has called the race for DeSantis which is... not a surprise at this point. Someone mop Putnam up off the floor, please.

8:15 p.m.:

Polls only closed in part of the Panhandle 15 minutes or so ago, so there's still a lot of statewide accounting to do. (Plus, in a move that might give some folks PTSD, Broward County has been struggling with some of its election data.) But Graham is oh-so-slightly leading Gillum statewide and there's still some time for Gillum to close that gap.

With 83 percent of precincts reporting in Miami-Dade County, it's nearly time to call some races. Ron DeSantis is not going to lose to Adam Putnam, for starters. But Shalala has held onto her Congressional district lead over Richardson for most of the night. On that race's Republican side, former CNN and Univision reporter Maria Elvira Salazar, who was long considered the front-runner, has been cruising to victory all night. Longtime county commissioner and well-known doofus Bruno Barreiro is losing handily, and Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, whom the Miami Herald endorsed despite her claiming to have been abducted by aliens, is sitting at 4.25 percent. Absentee ballots to take a while to come back from space, though.

In the other state-wide races, State legislator Matt Caldwell, a prolific Republican #Tweeter who once called New Times "fake news," appears to be ahead in the Republican Agricultural Commissioner race. Republican Attorney General candidate Frank White just conceded that race to competitor Ashley Moody, and progressive Democratic candidate Sean Shaw has clobbered his opponent in that race, too.

7:44 p.m.:

Gillum's surge continues. He and Levine are effectively tied now in Levine's home county, and he is only behind Levine's 41,000 votes by about 1,500 or so. This bodes well for Gillum statewide tonight. Campbell and Hardemon are still on track to lose.

But — do I hear DJ ESQ's music? Convicted criminal, former prosecutor/DJ, and ex-Miami Beach City Commissioner Michael Grieco, who pleaded no-contest to campaign-finance violations just last October, is narrowly ahead in his state House race by just about 400 votes. There's still 40 percent of the county to go, but Miami may not be rid of Grieco just yet.

Time for a handy breakdown of Republican races: GOP Gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, the human version of a cruise missile stuffed into a suit, has ridden a massive wave of jingoism and pro-Trump capitulation to take 68 percent of the vote in Miami-Dade County so far. In any other year, Adam Putnam would have seemed like a shoo-in: He hates the fake news media and the immigrants and the Deep State as much as the next guy. But DeSantis scored an early Trump endorsement, won a bunch of free airtime on Fox News — the only news source that matters to reactionary voters — and the rest was history. Putnam spent the last few weeks of the race name-dropping obscure Florida towns to make himself sound like a local, but nobody cared. The swine who supported Trump in Florida would have voted for DeSantis had he been from the moon.

7:25 p.m.:

We've got Dade County's vote-by-mail results. Perhaps not surprsingly, Miami Beach's own ex-mayor, Philip Levine, did well among absentee voters, taking just a hair shy of 40 percent. It's not stunning that Levine did well in his own home county — but it's Gillum in distant second place (10,000-ish votes to Levine's 20,000) ahead of alleged front-runner Gwen Graham. The Miami-Dade results could be a sign that Gillum will walk away with the vote statewide, but we'll see.

Down the ballot, two incumbent candidates on New Times' anti-endorsement list are behind in absentee-ballot votes: Alleged woman-puncher Roy Hardemon and absurd, serial-lying, accused "secret Republican" Daphne Campbell. Members of the local Democratic Party (and fellow politicians) campaigned against Campbell and Hardemon. Their challengers both also ran straight-ahead, competent, drama-free campaigns. The same cannot be said for Campbell, who called the cops on two different reporters in 2018 alone.


7 p.m.

Polls have closed across Florida, except for that weird part of the Panhandle netherworld that doesn;t fall in Eastern Standard Time. Due to the time-zone change, statewide results don't start popping online until 8 p.m. or so. But we should start seeing results shortly. As a bunch of reporters already noted a few hours ago, turnout so far has been massive in Miami-Dade County — which bodes well for Democrats and progressive-leaning folks in the smaller, nonpartisan, county-level elections, such as the state Senate race between pathological liar Daphne Campbell and opponent Jason Pizzo. ("Large" in this case is relative — Dade County is reporting that about 20 percent of registered voters went to the polls today.)

5:30 p.m.

So far, it looks like the Democratic "blue wave" is actually hitting. As of 3:30 p.m., voter turnout was reportedly crushing previous counts for mid-term primary elections in Miami. Per CBS Miami's Jim DeFede, Republican turnout is spiking to 31 percent — but Democratic turnout is up a whopping 71 percent over 2014:

And to give you an idea of intensity: The Republican vote (Early In Person and Mail In) is up 31 percent this year over 2014.

And that is great news for Republicans.

Except for one thing. The Democratic turnout is are up 71 percent over 2014 in Early and Mail In vote.

— Jim DeFede (@DeFede) August 28, 2018

Elsewhere, some candidates already appear to be packing it in. Yesterday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jeff Greene — a man who got rich betting that the banks would fail during the 2008 recession — canceled his election-night watch-party after an effort that New Times generously dubbed the single stupidest Democratic campaign we'd ever seen. (Some highlights: He is a billionaire real-estate developer who yelled at others for their allegedly corrupt real estate deals; he used his personal Mar-A-Lago membership to take anti-Trump photos inside Mar-a-Lago, et cetera.) Goodbye, billionaire fail-man, we hardly knew ye.

“And that, as they say, is that.” pic.twitter.com/Mc2FXXJiJv

— David Smiley (@NewsbySmiley) August 27, 2018