She may have been beaten, yet again, in the Democratic primary for the 26th Congressional district by the candidate who lost anyway to U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo Tuesday. But Annette Taddeo will not go gently into the good night. She is raging against, not a dying light, but the Republican darkness.

Taddeo is still vice chair of the Florida Democratic Party, after all, and for whatever good that has done anybody. Apparently believing she is still a valid Democrat surrogate for people like Hillary Clinton and former Sen. Dwight Bullard, she has been working the Spanish TV and radio circuit in the weeks leading up to the election. She sent out an email last week also to promote the medical marijuana amendment.

You gotta admire, maybe even envy, her thick skin. But maybe she is the kiss of death. Both her candidates lost. Epic fails, man.

Then Wednesday, among the thank you emails from winners and losers alike, she sent nothing less than a digital pep talk, even encouraging we get therapy if we need it. Really.

Dear Elaine,

There is no need to repeat what we’ve already heard on the news last night and today. Many of us are grieving, scared, or still in shock. That is normal.

Today is not the day to play Monday morning quarterback. There will be time for us to regroup later, and determine what we can improve in our strategy for the next election cycle. Right now, I ask you to reach out to the people in your life who spent time on this campaign, and thank them for their hard work and the sacrifices they made. Without these dedicated organizers, interns, and volunteers, last night would have been a whole lot worse.

I strongly encourage anyone who needs help to seek it, and anyone who can help to offer it. Now, more than ever before, it is critical that we stand together and support each other. History has shown us time and time again that we can survive and thrive, even in the worst of circumstances, if only we work together.

Today we begin our efforts to emerge from the despair that has blanketed our nation with the only tool we know can overcome this, the same tool a young, energetic Senator from Illinois had the audacity to use eight years ago when we were weary from a war gone on too long and teetering on the brink of a devastating financial crisis. Hope carried us to victory in 2008 and 2012, and hope will carry us to victory again.

Last night, President Obama promised us that the sun would rise again in the morning. Today, I promise you a similar fate with the same certainty — we will rise again. Together, we will rebuild the hope that propelled all of our progress over the past eight years, and together, we will win back all that we lost last night and then some.

Today, I ask you to remind your daughters that our promise of a female president is not broken, but merely delayed. And as you remind your daughters of this, join me in recommitting to ensure that we fulfill this great promise, because you and I both know that we can achieve it together.

We are working to determine our next steps, and will keep you updated on that process. Know that I am thinking of you, and that I have faith we will get through this together.

Your friend in the fight,

Annette Taddeo

It’s actually a smart message — saying out loud what many of her core supporters and non-supporters are thinking — especially if she’s running for office again. And it sounds to me like, barring an intervention by family and friends, Taddeo may be mulling a fifth stab at it. Key words: “Next steps.”

After running for county commission, lieutenant governor and congress, twice, what is left?

Mayor of Pinecrest, perhaps?

Both the Florida Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Florida will claim victories in Tuesday’s election after several state seats switched colors.

In the 305, we had four seats flip — two in the House and two in the Senate.

Both House seats were open (one due to term limits and one due to ambition) and both went from red to blue. But the Senate seats were one up, one down, thanks mostly to redistricting that left both incumbents vulnerable to state reps that ultimately got the best of them.

The first of those is Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, who lost a negatively charged contest with 46% of the vote against State Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, who got 49%. The senior of the DLP political brothers, Miguel raised and spent more than twice as much as Rodriguez (that we know of). DLP’s latest campaign finance report lists $937,000 in contributions compared to J-Rod’s $479,000. Plus DLP had another $750,000 or so in two PACs (Floridians for Ethics in Judicial Elections and Foundation for Human Values). Nobody knows how much more he had in non-profits or secret non-existing PACs like the one that sent a mailer recommending Democrat candidates — and DLP and Sen. Anitere Flores in her senate race.

He should have stressed his track record as an independent moderate, reminding people not only about his single-handed murder of those outrageous guns on campus laws last year but also the fact that he created the required county commission super majority vote to move the urban boundary line. His message, which wasn’t delivered effectively, should have been that he is in a better position to represent his district in a GOP majority Senate where he would be Big Man on Campus next legislative session. He tried to knock down Mr. Do Gooder and failed.

Meanwhile, J-Rod stuck to the ground game that helped him beat the younger brother, Alex Diaz de la Portilla, in 2012. The DLPs need to get back to basics. Knocking on doors and actually pressing the flesh is harder than recording robocalls and cute radio spots that use old Cuban sayings like a crutch. But it is also effective.

Maybe Miguel can do that when he runs for Coral Gables mayor.

Flipping the script on that race, but ending another political dynasty nonetheless, Democrat incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard was rejected by voters who instead elected Republican State Rep. Frank Artiles to the position (51% to 41%). They must have been moved by the multiple mailers and TV and radio spots calling Bullard a terrorist sympathizer.

Andrew Korge might also want to apologize to the Democratic Party for causing some early primary damage to the cause.

Does this mean that Artiles can move back into his house in Palmetto Bay? We are going to hold him to his promises about beating back the MDX tolls and electing a sheriff in Miami-Dade.

But Ladra suspects that his victory is bittersweet, knowing that he left his House seat to a Democrat.

Robert Asencio could be this election cycle’s unicorn, having won a Florida House seat with less than $100,000 and proving that anyone can get elected. He and Daisy Baez were elected to the Florida House in districts 118 and 114, respectively. Asencio beat David “King Nine Lives” Rivera, who maybe has run out of lives, by a mere 45 votes to become a state rep. Even though Rivera outspent him by at least 3 to 1 and tried to label him as a “child abuser” based on an internal affairs investigation that was possibly taken out of context. Maybe it worked. Maybe Asencio would have won with a bigger margin had that child abuser thing not surfaced.

As of the latest campaign finance reports, dated through Nov. 3, Rivera had collected $272,000 in contributions (on top of a $50K loan to himself). Asencio raised $77,768 and loaned himself $11,650.

Daisy Baez had to spend a lot more to beat off Republican John Couriel as both vied for the open seat left by termed out State Rep. Erik Fresen. She spent $274,000 as of Nov. 3, but also had $118,000 in in-kind assistance, mostly from the Democratic Party. She needed it against the Couriel bank of $438,500, plus $60K in in-kind (maybe the state GOP ought to step it up).

Each had run before — Baez got a respectable 44% against Fresen in 2012, the same year Couriel lost to Sen. Gwen Margolis — so they each had campaign experience and some name recognition for newbies.

But Baez got just under 51% and a lead of 1,301 votes.

So, if we’re keeping score, there was one switch from red to blue in our Miami-Dade delegation and one switch from blue to red in the Senate. But there were two switches from red to blue in the House for a net gain in the 305 of three Democrat flips.

That there weren’t more is a big failure of the state and local Democratic Party because more seats were flippable. After all, someone you never heard of named Anabella Grohoski Peralta got 45% of the vote against Sen. Rene Garcia with less than $5,500 raised against his $190,000 spent through Nov. 3. And a guy named Patricio Moreno got 45% against State Rep. Carlos Trujillo after he spent $5,764 against the incumbent’s $385K. Y un fulano Carlos Puentes, who got 45% of the vote against Jose Oliva, the next speaker, without raising a dime on a loan of $2,240. Oliva has spent $243,000.

Imagine how many more seats would have been flipped with more resources.

Most of us have been preoccupied — perhaps obsessed is a better word — with the presidential or the Miami-Dade mayoral election. But there were a lot of other races that culminated with Tuesday’s vote. Here are some highlights:

Sen. Marco Rubio beat Congressman Patrick Murphy back to gain another six years in office. He has said he will serve all six years. And that is probably true — especially now that Donald Trump won the presidency. If he likes it and wants to stay, the Republican Party will have to back The Donald in 2020. So this means we will have to wait until 2024 to have our first Hispanic president. Good thing Marquito is a young man.

Rubio’s onetime BFF, former Congressman David Rivera lost his bid to go back to the State House — by 45 votes. Isn’t that close enough for a mandatory recount? His 49% showing is much better than he fared in his bid to get back into Congress in 2012, where he lost the primary with just 8 percent in a five-man field (even Joe Martinez beat him). But still, we have a new face in Tallahassee: Robert Asencio, a former Miami-Dade Schools Police lieutenant won one of two House seats that turned blue. Rivera had waged a negative campaign, calling Asencio a child abuser based on a 2003 complaint from the mother of a student who was physically pulled off a bus for acting inappropriately. The investigation was closed without any findings.

Read related story: ‘Child abuser’ allegations in House 118 race ring hollow

But 118 is the second of two local House seats that turned blue Tuesday after Democrat Daisy Baez eeked out a victory over Republican John Couriel to replace termed-out State Rep. Erik Fresen (who is rumored to be after J-Rod’s new Senate seat). Both of them had run previous campaigns and had the benefit of having some name recognition, despite never holding office. But Baez got just under 51% and a lead of 1,301 votes.

Former Congressman Joe Garcia lost his own bid to get his own seat back, but not as closely. There’s a glaringly wide 11-point gap between U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo‘s 52% and Garcia’s 41% performance. Ladra suspects that when the numbers are crunched, we’ll find a bunch of Democrats who voted for Curbelo because of his liberal ways marriage equality and sea level rise and his early rejection of Donald Trump. And I bet Garcia is rethinking those ads that compared Curbelo to Trump, who is the apparent winner of the big POTUS prize. Anyway, that giant gap in the year that Curbelo would be allegedly vulnerable — because that’s it, folks, he is welded into that seat now like IRL — should certainly encourage Garcia to stay in the private sector. Ladra said it long ago. The only person that could have beat Curbelo was Ana Rivas Logan. Too bad she decided to run for state senate. Now we’re stuck with him.

Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a former Miami-Dade Commissioner and flagship of a political dynasty, lost a heated battle with State Rep. (now Sen.) Jose Javier Rodriguez, 46 to 49% — and turned the longheld Republican seat (brother Alex Diaz de la Portilla sat there for a decade before DLP took over in 2010) blue. The senior DLP outspent J-Rod more than 2 to 1, which almost proves that it is worth more to knock on 150,000 doors than it is to buy slick commercials that tries in vain to cast a liberal onetime legal aid attorney as beholden to special interests. It’s too bad. Miguel DLP was my favorite senator and, while J-Rod will likely be stymied, the incumbent actually did some good as a senior member of the majority party and may have better represented the district. Oh well. Maybe DLP will run for Coral Gables mayor next year.

Ending another political dynasty in the other really heated and mostly negative state senate race — and flipping the seat the other way — State Rep. Frank Artiles will move to the other chamber after he beat incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard, 51% to 41%. Guess all that business about Bullard being a terrorist worked. It’s scary to think we may see a resurgence of Artiles’ ugly bathroom legislation targeting transgenders. But does this mean he can move back into his Palmetto Bay house? He was forced to move out after Ladra caught him living outside his state House district in 2010.

There will be two runoffs for the mayor’s seat in Doral and in Miami Lakes, where none of the candidates were able to garner 50% of the vote.

Read related story: It ain’t over in Doral, Miami Lakes with mayoral runoffs

There was a big upset in the Miami-Dade School Board race where Steve Gallon III beat incumbent Wilbert “Tee” Holloway III with a resounding 61%. Gallon got a lot of the community support in a district — which includes Miami Gardens, Carol City and North Miami — where Holloway was cast as an empty suit. And it earned him a 22-point lead Tuesday. The other school board seat went to Gimenez in-law Maria Teresa Rojas, as expected. Not just because she is a longtime teacher and school administrator but also because the voters in that district probably reacted vehemently to a negative campaign in which her challenger was cast as a Fidel Castro sympathizer. Look soon for an announcement of Political Cortadito’s expansion into school board coverage.

We can also smoke pot to relieve certain debilitating conditions and chill out about having our own solar energy one day as voters approved the medical marijuana constitutional amendment but rejected the amendment on solar energy choice that would have basically limited our choices and allowed Big Energy to control everything. Voters were not fooled by that one — except in Miami-Dade where we actually had a majority vote yes on this wolf in sheep’s clothing (56 to 44%). Shaking my head.

There were also a bunch of questions in municipalities from Homestead to Sunny Isles Beach and we will get to those individually if they warrant it in the next few days. Some notable examples: Voters in Palmetto Bay rejected a proposal to annex a part of West Perrine. In South Miami, they gave the green light for the building of a new City Hall. And, in North Miami Beach, voters approved a slew of charter changes, including term limits and one that makes it easier for the council to fire the city manager. Please feel free to make suggestions/ask questions.

In fact, Ladra has a feeling we will be writing and reading about the results of this ballot for weeks to come.

If you, like Ladra, love elections and like to follow campaigns like sports teams, then there is good news from Tuesday’s election results: Two exciting local runoffs.

The mayoral seats in both Doral and Miami Lakes, where epic battles are being waged between colorful rivals, the excitement continues for a few more weeks while voters get to pick between the two finalists in each town.

In Miami Lakes, embattled on-again, off-again Mayor Michael “Muscles” Pizzi — who survived a federal bribery trial and fought tooth and nail to get his seat back — came in second place to Councilman Manny Cid, who fell five points short of winning the mayoral race outright. But Cid’s 45% was still a double-digit lead over Pizzi’s 31%.

Both will now compete fiercely for the 23%, or 3,253 votes, that went to founding former Mayor Wayne Slaton.

“Our message resonated with Miami Lakes residents and it is clear that it’s time for new leadership,” Cid told Ladra late Tuesday.

We shall see about that on Nov. 29 when voters get round two.

The second exciting runoff is Dec. 13 in Doral, where founding Mayor JC Bermudez has forced current mayor Luigi Boria into a runoff. Bermudez is probably happier, however, about leaving his nemesis, Councilwoman Sandra Ruiz, in the dust.

Bermudez had the most support Tuesday, with 46% of the vote. Boria came double-digits later with 33% and Ruiz barely competed with 20% — despite being a Democrat female in the one election when that should have counted the most.

Councilwoman Christy Fraga held on to her seat with 53% of the vote over two challengers who split the difference. But there will be a second race in the Dec. 13 runoff — between PTA activist Claudia Mariaca and Adriana Moyano, a marketing company owner. Neither secured 50% of the vote to replace Ruiz.

In the Lakes, both Councilmen Nelson Rodriguez and Tony Lama easily won re-election and newcomer Luis Collazo won the open council seat with 52% of the vote. Esther Colon and Nayib Hassan split the difference.

When we went to sleep last night, it really looked like there was going to be President Donald Trump today. Shiver.

But that’s not the only bad news.

We also have a new state senator in sucker-punching homophobe bear hunter Frank Artiles. Sigh.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a lobbyist with a secret client list and a penchant for lying to get his way, won another two years basically solidifying his congressional seat for the next decade. Gosh darnit.

And we get four more years of the Carlos Gimenez gravy train for his friends and family members and those who gave to his $10-million campaign. Shake my head.

It’s enough to make Ladra wanna cry.

Bet there’s going to be a lot of tears Wednesday. A lot of Monday morning quaterbacking, too. But the regrets? They’ll come later. Like when Artiles sponsors a law in the Senate legislating bathroom use. And when the mayor goes back to his key role — giving away pieces of the county to his connected friends and fam.

Everyone knows Ladra supported Raquel Regalado, even before we joined her campaign team. Because everyone knows Ladra lost her love for Tainted Boy Gimenez long ago. But now they will see why. Because with no future election to hold him back, Gimenez now has four years to collect as many contracts as he can for his friends and family before he is forced out by term limits in 2020.

He has no incentive to fulfill any of his promises. There is no reason for him to fix the broken transit system. There is no reason for him to open libraries five days a week. There is no motivation for him to hire  more police officers. He certainly won’t think twice before violating process again. The voters have said they don’t care about those things so he’ll make sure he keeps doing what he’s been doing — giving millions away to friends in high (and low) places.

He has billions in capital improvements for transportation and federally- and state-mandated water and sewer improvements to dole out. Can’t you see all his contributors salivating already?

And then, buoyed by this victory that he will call a “mandate,” and — tapping those same people again for another $10 million investment that they will happily pay to continue feeding on the public trough — he will run for Miami mayor in 2021.

Just watch.

Carlos Gimenez — and the decisions he makes in the next four years — will haunt us for decades to come.

It may be a contentious election year with many close races as the Democratic Party tries to snatch up some red seats and Republicans try to hold on and/or turn a few of their own.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t still get along, right?

A bi-partisan group of electeds in three contested races got together last week to promote living wage legislation that would pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour instead of $8.10 an hour.

The press conference came on the heels of an announcement Friday by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity that the state’s minimum wage would go from $8.05 per hour to $8.10 per hour. Elected officials around the state are saying that this token nickel raise is simply not enough to keep up with the much more rapidly increasing cost of living.

But Ladra bets most of them are Democrats. In Miami we had two, count ’em, two Republicans.

Taking a break from their campaigns for low-wage workers this morning:

• Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who despite her attack ads calling him a drunk driver, is facing the most serious challenge to her since Annette Taddeo, the OG version (in her first bid for office in 2008) from Democrat Scott Fuhrman.
• State Senator Anitere Flores, who faces attacks of her own from the Florida Democratic Party as they support Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in a redrawn district that is pretty evenly split, or maybe favors Republicans by just a tad. But will they come out to vote?
• State Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, who left the comfort of a guaranteed slide back to the House so he could change chambers with a challenge to the ever popular Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla in what has become one of the roughest local campaigns this year (more on that later).

Wait a minute. Didn’t the SEIU endorse DLP? Well, Local 1991 did. They represent the nurses and staff at Jackson and also endorsed Flores, Ros-Lehtinen and Sen. Rene Garcia. The other two locals, 1199 and 32BJ endorsed J-Rod in District 37.

Read related story: Public employee labor union backs three GOP legislators

Ros-Lehtinen has long touted her ability to reach across the aisle and build consensus. She is known to be pro equal rights and she seems to have some sanity regarding climate change. She recently helped write a bipartisan letter to UNESCO about Jerusalem and introduced bipartisan a bills to restore rights of Holocaust survivors. And she’s not voting for Donald Trump.

Still, Ladra is pretty sure it was uncomfortable for her and Flores to be standing with J-Rod while he’s attacking their friend, the Flagship DLP, on the airwaves on a year when he could very well lose his seat — even if they were on opposite sides of the podium.