All eyes are on the race to replace Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, who is vacating the seat to run for state CFO.
Three current members of the House are running for the seat, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties. Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale and Rep. Carl Domino from Juno Beach have run TV ads, duking it out in the Republican primary. Both the Bogdanoff and Domino campaigns claim their polling has them ahead in the race for the GOP nomination. With less than a month until the primary, the race is way too close to call.
Both Republican candidates have spent liberally in the race. Bogdanoff has raised just under $477,000 in cash and $5,900 through in-kind donations. She has spent almost $308,000 in the campaign so far. Domino has raised almost $122,000, gathered more than $3,100 through in-kind donations and kicked in $350,000 of his own funds. He has spent more than $462,000 so far.
Rep. Kelly Skidmore of Boca Raton, the Democratic nominee in the race, awaits whoever survives the Republican primary. Skidmore has raised more than $181,000 in cash and almost $15,000 through in-kind donations. She has kept the bulk of that on hand, spending more than $38,000 and sitting on the rest of it until the general election. She starts as a slight underdog to whoever emerges from the Republican race, but she does have a chance at picking this seat up for the Democrats -- especially if Bogdanoff and Domino tear into each other in the primary.
Harvard grad Miranda Rosenberg is running in the race as an independent and has brought in almost $8,000 in cash and put $2,000 of her own money into the campaign. She has spent almost $3,900. Rosenberg is a reformer with an impressive background, even earning an international fellowship from the Tony Blair Faith Foundation through her studies on religion in public life, and she has roots in the area. Despite her credentials, the young woman may find it hard to gain traction in a race full of established political heavyweights.
