Gas to drive around to the bigger West Dade and Kendall precincts on Election Day Tuesday: $22.

Bottles of water to stay hydrated: $10.

Lunch at Subway: $8.

The look on Barby Rodriguez-Gimenez‘s face when she realized her father-in-law, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, had not won the Miami-Dade mayoral race Tuesday and would be forced into a runoff: Priceless.

It’s almost like she’s saying: “F—! I may have to look for a real f—— job!”

Because Rodriguez-Gimenez has a mouth on her and a juicy no-show job at the county. She does “public outreach” for the water and sewer department as part of the same $139-million contract with CH2M Hill that pays the mayor’s BFF and campaign finance chair, Ralph Garcia Toledo, $200 an hour for clerical work. She got the job with subcontractor EV Services around the same time the company got the contract. You know, like it was criteria or something.

So… if Garcia Toledo’s total payout could equal $18 million over 12 years, what is the total payout for the mayor’s daughter-in-law?

Sources have told Ladra that this family botella is being investigated by the authorities. So is Garcia Toledo’s fraudulent use of what are called multipliers to pad invoices when he has no office (it’s a P.O. Box) or staff. We don’t know if that means the State Attorney’s Office or the Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. But it makes sense that it would be looked into. At least if the authorities are doing their job.

Because this rampant cronyism is one of the reasons why a majority voters rejected Carlos Gimenez Tuesday. And the more they learn about him and his friends and family plan — the more relatives and buddies we find feeding on the public trough — the more likely Gimenez will be rejected again in November.

So, yes, Barby, you might want to polish off that resumé and make some calls.

You would think, from hearing Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez tell it, that he won the election Tuesday night. You would think wrong.

Gimenez, who may very well be the first incumbent mayor ever to be forced into a runoff in Miami-Dade, can claim victory all he wants. It rings hollow. He may have come in first with the most votes and almost 48 percent, but he really lost Tuesday.

I mean, does it look like he’s celebrating a victory here? A picture says a thousand words. Compare his face to his challenger Raquel Regalado‘s in these side-by-side Miami Herald photos of post-result candidates giving speeches. Is he holding back tears?

Gimenez tweeted that he had won every key demographic group. But he didn’t win the one key demographic that mattered most: A majority.

He told reporters in a mostly empty “victory party” room at the Miami Airport Doubltree Hotel that he was “well-poised to take this to victory in November.” Well, he thought he was “well-poised” to take this to victory yesterday — and look how that worked out.

Everybody knows Gimenez totally expected to win outright in the first round on Tuesday. He bragged about it to reporters. He dismissed Regalado as nothing more than a nuisance. Operatives were telling people that his early voting exit polls were at 53 or 54 percent.

But Gimenez and his team sure weren’t acting like they were leading. They blew his cash wad with giant mailers, constant radio ads and TV commercials. They went hyper negative with a mailer that morphed Trump’s face with Regalado’s (it totally backfired, by the way) and an uber repetitive robocall his campaign made disguised as Regalado’s campaign to piss people off, a dastardly deed and possibly illegal move (more on that later). In fact, they threw everything they had — actually everything they invented — against Regalado, who suddenly goes from underfunded underdog to front runner.

Yes, I said front runner. Everything changes now. Because, despite all the mayor’s talk, the demographics in a November race favor the challenger. She has the teachers, the cops, the nurses and doctors and the majority of the public employees. She has the librarians and the Pets’ Trust community. Because of her advocacy for immigrant children, she has the Dreamers and those who love and support them. In other words, she appeals to voters across party lines.

In November, there will be far more voters driven to the polls by the presidential election. There are a projected 600,000 voters or more who have never voted for Miami-Dade mayor — or for Carlos Gimenez. There’s no loyalty or history there for them. And many of them in this predominantly Democrat county will be excited about the possibility of the first female U.S. president topping the ballot. Regalado, who would become the first female mayor of Miami-Dade, is definitely going to get some of that #ImWithHer action.

So what on Earth does Gimenez see as his clear path to victory?

Maybe Gimenez suddenly announces today or next week that he endorses Hillary Clinton. The Democrats around him might even stage a big photo op or something.

He could even change his party registration to Democrat or Independent. He already toyed with the idea in 2014 — or just said he was considering it because he knew it would get him lots of free press.

Either of those strategies would be a way to appeal to Democrat voters in a nonpartisan race that now features two lifelong Republicans. In fact, he may not have to switch to pander for those blue votes. Just suggesting it is enough to put this into the news cycle for a week! People will assume he switched.

Certainly the Democrats surrounding him are mulling these ideas over. His county communications director, Mike Hernandez, who really wants to work for Hillary instead, is the one who came up with that whole party switch PR stunt in 2014. The mayor’s consultant, Freddy Balsera, might work for Donald Trump and his Doral resort, but he has advocated and campaigned for Clinton, most recently in Puerto Rico. And his golden goose fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier, is a former Democrat Party operative who worked for the gubernatorial run by Alex Sink and who would love nothing more than to be a blue blood again.

So it’s really not that far-fetched to think that Gimenez would switch to gain an advantage in an election. Not in Florida, where we have party switchers like former Gov. Charlie Crist and former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan.

Although it really hasn’t worked that well for them.

Because voters are smarter than he thinks.

That’s why Ladra bets Gimenez will have that same constipated look on his face in November.

As if Ladra could get any happier Tuesday night, after the historic victory by Raquel Regalado, who forced Carlos Gimenez into a runoff that we know she can win in November.

But then, Trust Fund Baby Andrew Korge — who shopped around for a seat he felt he could win and then spent $700,000 or more to become a senator and then went mad dog on everybody and their mother — and then came in third anyway.

Our mailboxes in District 40 are going to get a little lonely.

Korge — who sent two dozen mailers and spent a quarter of a million, at least, on TV commercials — was beaten by the incumbent senator he cast as a terrorist sympathizer with money problems and a former state rep and party switcher who didn’t even campaign.

Read related story: Andrew Korge could make anyone a Frank Artiles fan

Sen. Dwight Bullard gets to defend his seat in November, winning with 49 percent of the vote (state primaries are won by the majority not a 50%+1 threshold). Former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan — who suspended her campaign WHEN to avoid the negative attacks she saw coming from Korge (he lunged for her anyway) — got 25 percent and Korge got 22 percent. Only Misselys Perez, who never campaigned or raised a dime outside of what she needed to qualify (plantidate anyone?) got less with slightly over 5 percent.

Bullard raised a total of $153,500 and Rivas Logan came in second with only $17K.

Could it be that the negative mailers turned people off? Could it be that nobody knew who this man who pronounced his name Kor-hay was? Could it be they saw him for the entitled, spoiled little snot who has never done anything on his own except ride his papi‘s coattails?

Korhay was nowhere to be found Tuesday. Nobody I talked to at several precincts saw him. They did see some of his campaign workers holding Sen. Anitere Flores fans at West Dade Regional Library — because that is in her district, not his, proving that more money does not necessarily mean more brains.

Or maybe he’s thinking of running for county commissioner next, against Javier Souto?

May we suggest that Baby Korge do something on his own first. Because Ladra would bet that Korge can’t get elected to the community council in any of the West Dade areas.

Everybody knows already that I am voting for Raquel Regalado for mayor of Miami-Dade. I’ve listed my reasons for years, because it’s really a referendum on Carlos Gimenez and the lousy job he has been doing and the climate of pay-to-play politics he has created, all documented here. Just do a search on Carlos Gimenez. Go back to 2012.

But Raquel is a good candidate in her own right. In six years on the school board, she has helped turn what was once a chaotic laughing stock — the fourth largest district in the country — into a national model. She has reformed the way they do business, from an overhaul of their bus maintenance to pioneering social media and tech policies. From construction to facilities to special education — where she has helped bring education into the 21st century — Raquel has had a hands on approach to her job as one of nine school board members in charge of a $3.2 billion budget and overseeing about 50,000 employees, twice as much as the county.

She has a lot of good ideas. Just check them out on her very well written website (ahem).

And we’ve never had a woman as Miami-Dade mayor and I’m excited about that.

But there are a lot of other important races on Tuesday’s ballot, too. And because people are constantly asking me who or how I’m voting, I decided to post my recommendations for this Aug. 30th. As a proud, card-carrying NPA, this at least gives me the chance to cast a ballot, however straw it may be, in races where I otherwise have no say.

I’m not weighing in on every race, just the ones where I feel I can. And where I care. And I may not always have such an articulate and/or valid reason as I do with the mayoral race. But here goes:

FOR U.S. SENATE

Republican Marco Rubio because I don’t have to have a valid reason. See? I told you. I may not agree with a lot of his positions on issues like climate change and gay marriage, but I like him. A lot. I think he’s real and authentic and he isn’t just telling me what I want to hear. I like his story. I like his family. I like his boots. I like the way he talks. His words move me and I’m jaded AF. Ask anyone. It helps that he grew up down the street — who doesn’t want to root for the home team — and that his mom and I worked at the same K-Mart in Westchester (but I don’t know if it was at the same time). Plus I think that he cannot negatively impact gay marriage, which is legal now, or sea level rise response, which is inevitable.

Democrat Pam Keith because Ladra is half rabblerouser, like her. And because everything she says makes sense. And because the other two guys get on my nerves. Someone please tell Congressman Patrick Murphy that he shouldn’t email me more than once a day.

FOR U.S. HOUSE

DISTRICT 26: Democrat Joe Garcia, because no matter how hard she tries people just don’t like Annette Taddeo — or maybe it’s that they don’t trust her — and I still think Garcia has a better chance of beating Carlos Curbelo in November. And if Carlos Curbelo, a liar and lobbyist with a secret client list, isn’t upset this year he’ll be there forever, like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. And we can’t have that. Garcia isn’t always right. But, like Rubio, he’s a true believer. He really thinks he’s right. He’s not doing it for a proxy. And I’ll take a true believer who just happens to be wrong sometimes to a sinister liar trying to game the system any day. The former congressman might have been beaten two years ago by Curbelo, but that was in an off year.

Read related story: Awkward! Annette Taddeo, Joe Garcia face off with polite jabs

DISTRICT 27:

Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen because none of the others can hit the ground running. IRL is a legend who still has a little pull in D.C. With Republicans. With Democrats. She is a popular senior in high school. She is not a Freshman transplant. She will be able to do more.

Democrat Scott Fuhrman because it doesn’t really matter since nobody can beat Ileana, not even a Democrat in a Hillary year. Her gay cred with a transgeder son and her pro-Dreamer immigration stance makes her a crossover darling. But Fuhrman is fun to watch and might make a good elected — one day. So let’s give him the practice.

There’s more. Please press this “continue reading” button to “turn the page.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has siphoned (read: stolen) monies from the People’s Transportation Plan, approved by voters to build MetroRail extensions, and used it for operation costs. He raised bus fares in 2013 from $2 to $2.25 when he bought $40 million worth of new buses. And he has cut bus operations by $3 million this year, saying he’s okay with a 78 percent on-time rate because it’s acceptable for people to be late 22 percent of the time.

Oh, and he spent $33 million on an app that can sell us bus and rail passes on our smart phones and who knows how much on another app that can tell us that the 120 Beach MAX or the 137 West Dade route is going to be late 22 percent of the time.

Now, on the eve of his re-election effort, Gimenez announces his first major transit “solution” (and I use the word solution loosely): Uber ride-sharing!

Ladra is not making this up. And maybe we should have seen this coming when Gimenez and a few commissioners fell all over themselves to make the for-hire passenger service legal earlier this year. Because now, the county proposes that Uber, which was operating illegally for more than two years, be the stop gap between home and the MetroRail.

“The Department of Transportation and Public Works has joined forces with one of the most popular ride-share programs around: Uber,” reads the almost breathless press release from the county. “The collaboration is just another way DTPW is working to ease riders’ commutes and help reduce congestion on the roadways by encouraging more drivers to opt for public transit.”

Read related story: Watch as Uber’s intimidating tactics catch fire

This is public transit? Someone else’s car?

“At Miami-Dade County, we’re all about moving our residents forward and making it easier for all Miamians to get where they need to go,” Gimenez said in the release. “By collaborating with Uber, getting to and from our transit stations is easier — and faster — than ever.”

Well, wait. It will still cost you $3 a trip, so that’s $6 a day, assuming you use Uber also to get home. So that’s $30 a week, or $120 a month. Just for the stop gap ride. We would still have to pay the bus and/or train separately.

Oh, and wait. It’s only good for people who live within 15 miles of a Metrorail station. Live in Homestead? You’re still screwed. Wait for the bus that is late one day out of the week. Nobody is about moving you forward and making it easier for you to get where you need to go.

Oh, and wait. It’s a temporary fix. Only good for the next month. The “promotional fare” will end Sept. 30. After that, Uber will charge market rates — or you can go back to walking and hitching rides with your momma.

Or paying $4.50 for parking. Because Ladra predicts that the only people who are going to take advantage of this are the people who already drive to MetroRail and park their cars all day there. The difference for them is $3 a day. Or $15 a week for a someone else to deal with the traffic. That may be worth it to just about anybody. Do without lunch.

“A lot of our residents are curious about trying public transit, so we want to make the choice an easy one,” said Transit Director Alice Bravo. “By collaborating with the ride-share companies, our riders have the benefit of a quick and easy trip to one of our Metrorail stations for a low, affordable price, without worrying about parking.”

Bravo is really counting on Gimenez winning his re-election. Here she is at a honk and wave rally on a recent Saturday — protecting her $235,000-a-year job making ridiculous statements like that. And like this.

“Uber will get you to us, and then let us do the rest.”

Doesn’t it feel like a commercial for Uber? Did their lobbyist get the county to do this? Who benefits more? The county? The rider? Nope. Uber benefits more. This is the best PR you can buy.

But who is Bravo kidding? This ridiculous partnership is not going to attract a lot of new riders who can’t afford $120 a month for a stop gap trip. But it might cost Miami-Dade some parking revenue.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez moves to legalize Uber, pardon penalties

The county doesn’t care. “Don’t sweat your commute, and let Miami-Dade and Uber take you where you need to go.”  It sounds so good. Like a bumper sticker.

Tell you what, Mayor Gimenez, why don’t you make Uber pay all their fines from the many months they snubbed their nose at the law and operated illegally? Take that $3 or $4 million you want to forgive, and apply those funds toward bus maintenance and operations so we can be on time more often.

Because what good are the $40 million in new buses you bought last year if nobody will ride them? Because they’re late one out of five days?

Last year, everybody was so happy about the $40 million in new buses — nobody mentioned they’d be late 22 percent of the time.

One of the scariest things that could happen Tuesday is that Trust Fund Baby Andrew Korge could actually win a seat on the Florida Senate.

God help us all.

Because he really doesn’t deserve it. Not only has Korge done nothing at all notable in his short adult life but live off his Papi’s millions, he has also behaved during this campaign alternately like an entitled cry baby and a bully with a big bat (read: wallet). He has not behaved like someone who could be a senator.

The self-righteous little punk has driven fear into the hearts of local Jews by trying to make Bullard look like a terrorist sympathizer. Korge had a fundraiser last week in Aventura — bet he pronounced his name Korge with a hard G, there, and not Kor-hay like Jorge —  where he told contributors and supporters that Bullard is soft on Israel (although he is a state senator, not a U.S. Senator) and wears a scarf that might look like a Palestinian Kaffiyeh.

But Ladra bought her brother a scarf for Christmas that looks a lot like the one in the picture of Bullard. I got it at Dadeland Mall. At Abercrombie & Fitch. I’ve seen them on the accessory wall at DSW, too.

Also, I wear a lot of Indian jewelry and clothing — and that doesn’t make me Hindu. This is America, and Miami even, where we can adopt customs from other cultures without being judged.  Korge sure can adopt our Latino culture. In an appeal to Hispanic voters, he has taken to pronouncing his name like Jorge with a K (Kor-hay).

Read related story: So much Andrew Korge in the mailbox — maybe a record

He’s also spent a lot of money on mailers. But you can’t be sure exactly how much just by looking at his campaign reports, because he doesn’t list them as such. In fact, the PAC — which has sent the majority of mailers — has no mailer or postage expense line items at all. Ladra had to assume those fall under the “media” expenses paid to David Heller’s company, Main Street Communications. That amounted to about $220,000. Korge has spent almost that much on his media buys and production as well, but the mail budget has to be a record number. (Heller is going to have a nice holiday season this year. Tip: Don’t buy your male relatives scarves from Abercrombie & Fitch.)

Ladra lives in District 40. My home got 24 mail pieces from the Korge campaign. Most of them are negative attacks on Sen. Dwight Bullard, the incumbent, and former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan, who “suspended her campaign precisely to avoid the dirty campaign — she could fly under the radar and win — but she got hit anyway.

Korge wants to be senator so bad he tried to buy his way in. He offered Bullard $25,000 to drop out of the race. Oh, not in cash. An investigation into allegations of bribery found no wrongdoing because all Korge did was offer to raise $25,000 for Bullard — but in another seat.

Read related story: Andrew Korge still shops around for a seat — or a sellout

“Dwight lied to voters and the media,” Korge told Ladra in a text message on Friday, all excited that he could spin the news into an exoneration. Because Dwight didn’t lie.

The Miami Herald story said “Korge’s claim was bolstered by text messages that showed Bullard, weeks earlier, had asked for help from Korge in fundraising, according to a final report on the investigation released Thursday by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.”

The problem with that is “weeks earlier” was when Korge was running in another seat, against Sen. Anitere Flores, and could have been seen as a Bullard ally. There’s nothing wrong with Bullard seeking fundraising help from one of the most prolific Democratic fundraising families in South Florida. It was actually smart.

But for Korge to make the offer again after he jumped into the race against Bullard should constitute bribery,  Ladra is thinking that the definition of bribery needs to be expanded. Because the intention is the same.

Now he is trying to buy the seat with $800,000 spent between his campaign and his PAC. Ladra bets it goes up to $1 million before the primary is over. He seems like the kind of politician who might just be willing to throw money at anything. He might do the same thing with our tax dollars.

Baby Korge also has a robocall telling voters that a vote for Rivas Logan will not count. Don’t you believe it. The man who would be senator is lying through his teeth. That’s how much he wants to be a senator, dammit. Because he knows damn well that a vote for Ana Rivas Logan will count. That is why he has spent good money attacking her, too.

There are three candidates in the Democratic primary for Senate in district 40

The Democrat in Ladra’s house voted for Rivas Logan and we will argue that she didn’t have to campaign to win. Her name recognition alone had polls showing Ana beating both before she suspended the campaign and their negative back and forth could help her rise above it all.

Read related story: Senate 40 race: Ana Rivas Logan still in it, could win it

But, yes, Ladra is scared that Rivas Logan didn’t do enough and Korge — with his mailbox fetish and TV ads and fear-inducing robocall — could take the crown. Is this how Korge will treat elected office? Will he lie and cheat and bribe his way to success there? The end justifies the means?

He’s going to be insufferable for sure.

It’s almost enough to make Ladra support Frank Artiles, the state rep who is running against whatever Democrat wins in November.

So, if you’re a Democrat in District 40, please vote for Rivas Logan or Bullard. Don’t make Artiles the lesser of two evils.