Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach is leaving the Senate to run for the Democratic nomination for attorney general and Gwen Margolis is the front-runner to take this seat which represents Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
A veteran politician who was first elected to the House in 1974, Margolis has served two different tenures in the Senate, serving a stint as Senate president in the early 1990s, and spent almost a decade on the Miami-Dade County Commission, including six years as chairperson.
But Margolis has had some setbacks in her political career -- for example, losing a congressional race to Clay Shaw. Margolis suffered a defeat in 2008. While she was the leading candidate in the race for Miami-Dade property appraiser in the general election, Margolis did not receive a majority of the votes, forcing her into a runoff with Pedro Garcia in December. Margolis launched a legal challenge, arguing that she did not need a majority of the votes to win the election. The court rejected that argument and so did the voters. While Margolis won 42 percent of the vote in the first election to Garcia’s 31 percent, the tables were turned in December when Garcia ran off with more than 59 percent of the final vote.
Margolis has raised more than $99,000, loaned the campaign $35,000 and has spent more than $65,000 so far in the campaign.
Margolis does have competition for the Democratic nomination. Former North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns dropped out of the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate election to run for the seat that Gelber is vacating. Burns has raised almost $11,000 and spent more than $9,000 so far. Burns was more than willing to tap into his own money for his U.S. Senate campaign and spent more than $72,000 from his own pocket. He may do the same thing in the closing weeks of the primary with Margolis. Regardless, it appears that Burns is an underdog.
Conservative Corey Poitier who is running as an independent will face the winner of the Democratic primary. He has raised $1,700 and spent over $1,500 in the campaign.
