Even though Florida Sen. Annette Taddeo has raised more than twice as much campaign fodder for her re-election as her challenger, Republican superwoman Marili Cancio has more cash in hand, according to the latest campaign reports.
That’s because Taddeo has outspent Cancio, who has only been campaigning since June, by almost ten times.
Cancio has reportedly raised $319,457 between her campaign account and her PAC, Friends of Marili Cancio, according to latest campaign reports filed that tallied through Sept. 14 and Sept. 21, respectively. That’s less than half of the to the $760,408 raised by the sitting senator between her campaign account and her PAC, Fight Back Florida, only counting the funds since she won the seat in a special election in September, 2017.
But Taddeo has spent close to $530,000 since October 2017 and Cancio has only spent about $60K. That means Cancio has a small edge in cash on hand, by the tune of about $20K. Not enough to really make a difference. And she has struggled in the most recent reports, so maybe the donations were early and have been spent.
Read related: GOP’s Marili Cancio vs Dem Sen. Annette Taddeo in ‘year of the woman’
Of course, money is not everything. Taddeo won her seat in last year’s special election against former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz, who had more than three times as much campaign funding as she did.
And also, this doesn’t count outside party money. Like the kind that paid for mailers that arrived in the district last week, courtesy the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (pro Cancio) and the Florida Democrats Legislative Campaign Committee (anti Cancio). A source involved in the race told Ladra that Taddeo had sent two positive pieces earlier, but this negative attack on Cancio’s support of the Marshall Program that puts guns in schools is the first received by Ladra.
“She’s worried. My campaign is too clean,” Cancio told Ladra in a text message over the weekend.
“You are not going to get mail from me because yo are now a registered D,” she added, with a smiley face emoji. “Focused on NPAs — can’t afford the entire universe.”
It’s true that in her own mail piece, she is appealing to NPAs and trying to come off as moderate. “I am a state senate candidate because I want to bring new ideas and perspectives to the challenges we face in our community, overcoming partisan politics,” the piece from the Senate Campaign Committee says, but in Spanish.
It landed last week in Ladra’s home, but addressed to both of Ladra’s parents, “Hispanics over 60,” an often sought voting bloc. One is Republican but one is registered Democrat, so Cancio’s universe is bigger than she says.
Read related: Jose Felix Diaz outspends Annette Taddeo 3 to 1 plus — but loses anyway
The intro/bio piece, which has waaaaay too much copy on it, has the word “Republican” only in one place — the tiny type disclaimer. It focuses on her community work — stints on the board of Directors at Miami Dade College (it doesn’t say she was appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott), the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board, the Miami-Dade County Hispanic Affairs Board, the Florida Association of Universities and as pro bono attorney for La Liga Contra El Cancer.
“She has always put the interests of our community above partisan politics,” it says.
But who is Marili kidding? This is the Republican Superwoman, a nickname Ladra gave her because of her hard work for the party. She was proud of it before she needed NPA voters to help her win this seat. She constantly defended Trump on Twitter, which is the reason why she has deactivated her old account for a new campaign one — to hide all that partisan Trumpism.
But make no mistake about it, Marili Cancio is as puro GOP as they get. Cancio, who was recruited by the Republican Party, has been involved in local GOP causes, the Women’s Federated Republican club and has been a surrogate for national and state candidates on Spanish TV and radio for years, often providing the Republican voice on This Week in South Florida, where she goes out of her way to defend and promote the GOP agenda.
Of course, the people who vote in District 40 may not know that. Because they don’t know Cancio at all and they are getting very toned down version of her. It’s time Taddeo use some of her funds to let people know who Cancio really is.

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The Republicans know former State Sen. Frank Artiles wouldn’t stand a chance against newly-minted Sen. Annette Taddeo in a rematch so close to his fall from grace: Artiles was forced to resign his seat last year after he was caught in a drunken, racist and sexist tirade against fellow legislators in a Tallahassee watering hole, setting up a special election in District 40.
Democrat Taddeo won the seat in a bitter fight with former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz.
But how would she fare against a Repubican superwoman? We’re about to find out.
In the “year of the woman,” the GOP has apparently settled on Marili Cancio to run against Taddeo and try to take that seat back. Because she wasn’t their first choice.
Several sources have told Ladra that former Miami-Dade Commissioner and State Rep. Juan Zapata and State Rep. Jeanette Nuñez, who terms out this year and has not found a place to land, were both encouraged to run before Cancio. Zapata said he had “been approached through third parties. I was clear from the get-go that I had no interest.”  Nuñez doesn’t want to have to move.
Las malas lenguas also say party honchos tried to convince two of the five Republicans running in the open race in House District 115, vacated by termed-out Michael Bileca, to switch — although not Bileca himself?
Everybody knows that Cancio, who has served on Republican clubs and is often invited to TV programs to present the GOP side of every argument — you know, because they’re always right — makes a great candidate. She’s knowledgeable. She’s smart. She’s pretty. She’s well spoken. She’s practiced. She doesn’t get nervous. She’s got access to people with money.
Okay. So she lost her first attempt at elected office in the 2010 Republican primary for congress against David “Nine Lives” Rivera, getting only 11% and finishing third, under even “Captain” Paul Crespo, who got 24% despite having been arrested for DUI. Not a good first showing.  But she is much more well-known and stronger now.
Some political observers might ask why she’d try again in a bluish district in a blue wave year. Seems like a waste of political capital. Ladra says it’s because Marili likes a challenge. If it were easy, she wouldn’t be into it.
But she also doesn’t buy into all the hype.
“I don’t think that special elections are a true reflection of what’s going to happen in a general election,” Cancio said, referring to a wave of Democrat wins in special elections across the state — including Taddeo’s. “Independents are going to be very important.”
Cancio, the daughter of onetime Miami-Dade Commissioner and concrete giant Jose “Pepe” Cancio, said she was courted to campaign and had already discussed moving to the district to be closer to her son in South Miami and her just pregnant daughter in Pinecrest. She decided to go for it — and will be renting in the Dadeland area while she puts her Key Biscayne house up for sale — because Taddeo has done nothing, she said.
“She didn’t bring back any dollars. She voted against gun control, she voted against the budget, she voted against a raise for teachers,” Cancio said, adding that her contacts would have her hit the ground running from Day 1. “I’m going to bring the money back to Miami-Dade that she’s not able to bring,” she said.
But when she said that Taddeo voted “against gun control,” what she meant was against the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Student Safety Act because of the Marshall Program that puts guns in the hands of school staffers, which caused a quite a few Dems to vote against the bill, which passed 67-50 after a divisive debate with some victims’ family members against it.
“If she wants this to be about arming teachers and the defunding of our public schools, then bring it on,” Taddeo told Ladra Wednesday. “If she had bothered to go to any of the town halls that I went to in the District, she would know that we are severely underfunded and that people don’t want guns in schools.”
As expected, Taddeo voted against the MSD bill, named after the high school in Parkland where 17 lives were taken in a mass school shooting, because it puts guns in schools and because “all it does is provide an unfunded mandate,” Taddeo said, referring to the $400 million the state said should go to school hardening. “And after we worked so hard to take out the arming of teachers, they left in the arming of other people — the lunch lady, the librarian, the janitor — and I’m not okay with that.”
She said she spent much of the first session building relationships. She studied all the Republican bills and tried to find one bill from each GOP senator that she could co-sponsor. “So I could meet them and talk to them about the bill I liked,” she said. “We have to find what we have in common.” She said Republican lawmakers expected a party first liberal and she surprised them by being a small business owner.
“I actually do make payroll every two weeks,” said Taddeo, who owns a firm that does language translating. “They didn’t know this.”
She ended up co-sponsoring five bills with Republicans.
But her claim to fame is a flood insurance (SB 1282) bill that she sponsored and really carried through session. It passed unanimously and basically forces homeowners to sign the part of their insurance policy that would show they know they don’t have flood insurance if they don’t specifically get flood insurance. It is intended to encourage more people to get flood insurance coverage.
“I worked with the insurance industry to make sure we didn’t overburden them,” she said.
Now, Ladra would hate to think that Cancio is the type of candidate that would stretch the truth to get elected.
But Taddeo also did happened to bring some dollars back home, including funding for the Miami Military Museum, a project originally sponsored by none other than Artiles. Sen. Taddeo will be at the upcoming ribbon cutting. Other appropriations bills she sponsored or co-sponsored include:

$250k for a Children of Inmates project “Babies and Brains,” which is targeted towards early childhood education of children with incarcerated parents (an extremely high-risk group of children
$25 Million for post-hurricane beach recovery
$80 Million for Miami-Dade adults with disabilities
$750k for the Miami-Dade Institute for Child and Family Health
$250K for the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust
$69k for the West Miami Community Center
$1 Million for Zoo Miami
$400k to fund the Miami Fire and Rescue Department Mobile Command Center
$1 Million for the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center to research cures for firefighters with cancer
Nearly $100 Million to FIU and MDC in education appropriations

“I actually had an extremely successful first session not only in money to be distributed, but even projects that had never been funded before,” Taddeo said.
Marili should have at least known about the money for Miami Dade College, where she has served on the board of trustees for seven years. The biggest “sacrifice” running for office is to give up that seat, she said. But she also believes that experience is going to help her get elected. “I know what we need here, the infrastructure we need,” Cancio said.
A known Trump supporter who often defends his policy decisions on TV and radio, Cancio said she didn’t think that would hurt her in this election. “The economy is doing better. Businesses are doing better,” she said. “I’m running for state, not federal, and I’m going to make that about local issues, transit issues.”
Well, one thing is certain: The debates are going to be interesting.

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Former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz is nothing if not a formidable fundraiser.

Everyone expected the Senate District 40 race to be expensive and Ladra even suggested it could be the most expensive Senate race in Florida history. We’ll have to wait until the final campaign finance reports are submitted weeks from now, but so far it looks like at least $5.5 million has been spent so far on TV and phone banks and so many mailers. Some days, there were eight pieces in our mailbox. Eight!

Maybe it will be $6 million plus by the final tally.

Is that a record? Can anyone tell me?

Diaz, a Republican golden boy who lost this heated battle in an upset against perennial loser Annette Taddeo Tuesday (51% to 47%) spent more than three times as much as the victor with a whopping $4,283,911 between his campaign account and his two PACs, Rebuild Florida and Leadership for Florida’s Future, in his bid to jump from one chamber to the next. That includes $651,694 in in-kind donations — mostly for polling, research and staff — from the Florida Republican Senatorial Committee because the GOP was just as desperate to keep the seat as the Dems were at taking it back.

And that is just as of Sept. 21, the last date on the last filed report. When the last reports are in next month, illustrating the flurry of expenses on the last five days, that number could easily be closer to $5 million.

But let’s just keep it at $4.2 mil for now. That’s $4,283,911 for a total of 20,985 votes, which comes out to $204.14 per vote. Again, so far. That number is only going to go up.

In comparison, Taddeo, spent a total of about $1,286,032 between her account and her two PACs, Fight Back Florida and the Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. That also includes at least $274,213 in in-kind donations from the Florida Democratic Party for things like research and polling and campaign staff. Divided amongst the 22,649 who voted for her Tuesday, that comes out to $56.78 a vote.

Much of the spending went to the

What does this tell us? This tells us that Team Taddeo was able to do more with less and that the people on that team, which include Ashley Walker, Christian Ulvert, Carlos Odio and, I believe, Raul Martinez Jr., should be banking on the next campaign they work on. That is, if they don’t have Senate jobs by now.

It also tells us that Pepi Diaz could spend up to $200 or more per vote if/when he runs for Attorney General. He’s going to put those fundraising skills to the test.

Proving that tenacity and good old stubborn persistence can pay off, perennial candidate Annette Taddeo finally won an election Tuesday.

And against a “titan” like former State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, who spent at least twice as much money (more on that later), too.

Taddeo beat Diaz by a comfortable edge, 50.95 to 47.21 percent for Diaz. The difference went to professor and independent candidate Christian “He-Man” Schlaerth, who managed to get 820 people to vote for him. But, let’s face it, he likely peeled votes from Annette so without him she would have won bigger.

Was this a referendum on Donald Trump?

Some seem to think so. The director of the local SEIU, which represents property service workers, including airport workers and janitors, said “Annette Taddeo’s victory is a stunning rebuke of the divisive politics of hate that have been embraced by many Republicans in Tallahassee and Washington.

“We’re excited that Annette will be heading to Tallahassee to fight for raising the minimum wage, good public schools, immigrant rights and equality for all Floridians,” finished Helene O’Brien.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee tweeted that Taddeo’s win was the seventh red-to-blue flip across the U.S. since November and “is just the latest example of voters rejecting Trump and the GOP’s dangerous agenda.”

People who voted for Taddeo and tweeted about it also indicated that anti-Trump sentiment was at least in the back of their minds. “Just did the thing! Hope everyone who cried about trump being elected went out and did their part,” tweeted Nick at @holywavve, including a pic of the “just voted” sticker.

And that was the idea. State Democrats were desperate to turn the seat back around after losing it to the GOP last year. They and Taddeo’s campaign made a lot of comparisons between Diaz and Trump and used the picture of them that Diaz tweeted from last year’s inaugural — and then deleted when he entered this race — on several mailers (sometimes in one day). One of them even blew up a picture of a Trump note from an old campaign contribution, before he was POTUS, wishing Pepi Diaz good luck.

Diaz, who was once Trump’s “apprentice” on the TV show by the same name, was definitely cast as a supporter and surrogate for the orange-haired commander in chief. Democrats are giddy that the Trump card is working — and you can bet we will see more of it.

Said Senate Democratic Leader-Designate Jeff Clemens: “I am thrilled to congratulate Annette Taddeo on her great victory. The Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee committed to righting a wrong in this district and electing a proven champion who will join our caucus to fight for an agenda that puts working families first.”

It was about “righting a wrong.” That refers to the win last year over longtime Sen. Dwight Bullard by former State Rep. and short-lived Sen. Frank Artiles, who was caught making racist remarks to black colleagues in a public restaurant and was forced to resign. And it gave Democrats — not just locally but across the state and even the nation — a second chance to win the seat back.

“Congratulations to Annette Taddeo on this major victory for Miami-Dade and our entire state. This is a win for all of Florida. Democrats represent 16 of 40 state Senate seats. Annette will head to Tallahassee ready to fight for higher paying jobs, affordable healthcare and fully funded public schools. Democrats across the state are energized and mobilizing to flip Florida blue. After nearly 20 years of harmful GOP policies, voters are ready for a better deal.

The Florida Democratic Party joined progressive partners like the FDLCC, unions on a community engagement effort that sets a new standard for our Party. We actively engaged both the Latino and African American communities of SD40 in neighbor-to-neighbor conversations focused on the issues that matter most. This victory is the first of many, as we are poised to claim the governorship, we are prepared to re-elect Senator Bill Nelson, and we are within striking distance of reaching parity in the upper chamber of the state legislature.

The FDP has made significant strides in building long-term political and grassroots infrastructure that will help Democrats win critical seats at the local, state, and federal level. We are organizing year-round and we will be engaging in neighbor-to-neighbor conversations in every one of our 67 counties to turn Florida blue in 2018 and beyond.”

In a statement released at 8:40 p.m., Taddeo said it was a victory for the residents of Senate District 40, who live in Westchester, Kendall and South Dade.

 “The voters wanted a champion in Tallahassee who will fight for higher paying jobs, affordable healthcare and fully funded public schools and I am honored and humbled that they have placed their faith and trust in me. I pledge to work everyday for the families of my community and not the special interests. I would like to thank my opponent for running in a hard-fought race. Our campaign saw a strong coalition come together between the FDP, the FDLCC, labor and community organizations who unified behind a winning plan. I’m beyond thankful for all the work and their efforts and the the thousands of volunteers who committed their time, energy and resources. This was a community, grassroots driven effort and I am ready to continue the work in our state capitol.”

It was also an early voting and Election Day effort. Because Pepi Diaz — who looks optimistic in this photo with poll workers at 8:30 Tuesday morning — won the absentee ballot race by nearly 2,200 votes. It must have been a terrible tease for Diaz because Taddeo later got more than twice as many votes in early voting and made up those 2,200 votes plus a few more on Tuesday.

I have to say, while I don’t love either candidate, Ladra feels a breeze of justice going through her soul because Pepi Diaz was acting like a real piece of, er, work. He was all over social media, at the podium next to the mayor, during the preparations and warnings for Hurricane Irma and afterwards, he had a TV commercial where he said “as a state rep I will be knocking on doors” to see what people needed after the storm. Seriously? He was no longer a state rep but he was sure acting like one and he sure had the access of one. Then there was that other ugly TV commrcial where David Lawrence brags about how Pepi helped 20,000 “perfectly legal” immigrant children. Ouch. Ladra sure hopes The Children’s Trust that Lawrence doesn’t check kids’ papers before helping the neediest children in our community. That’s not what I voted for.

But if Ladra feels a breeze, Taddeo must feel a hurricane of vindication. After all, she has campaigned for about a decade and has a relentless drive to be in elected office (read: watch her like a hawk). Taddeo, who also served as chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, first ran for Congress against U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in 2008. She then made unsuccessful bids for county commission (2010), lieutenant governor with former Gov. Charie Christ (2014), and Congress again but this time against former Congressman Joe Garcia (2016) — maybe now they can be friends again — who lost anyway and again to U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo.

Guess the fifth time (not countying the Florida Dem chair race) is the charm.

And Ladra is fairly certain that will be the final tally, despite threats from some voter rights groups to challenge the special election after Gov. Rick Scott refused to delay it to accomodate voters inconvenienced by Hurricane Irma,

That’s because those groups — Common Cause Florida, State Voices Florida, the League of Women Voters Florida, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Engage Miami, SAVE, LatinoJustice and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law — can arguably be lumped together under the blue umbrella. They were likely afraid that Diaz would benefit from a low turnout. How much you wanna bet there’s no challenge from them now that Taddeo has won?

Unless they challenge on behalf of Democrat Gabriela Mayaudón, who lost Tuesday in the House District 116 race to Republican Daniel Perez, for the seat vacated by Diaz when he resigned to run for Senate. But that would be ridiculous since Mayaudón is really only a Democrat on paper. Let her run a few times before you run to her defense, huh?

On the GOP side, it seems that at least Diaz — who some say is looking at the Attorney General seat — took the loss like a trooper, tweeting his kudos to Taddeo just after 10 p.m.

“Congratulations to Florida’s newest State Senator Annette Taddeo. I wish you nothing but success in your new role,” he said.

What a difference a few hours makes.

Two days after he crushed it in the GOP primary for the Senate Distrit 40 seat, former State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz is getting a head start on the general campaign with a mailer that calls him a “tax cutter” and a committment of $100K from fellow Republicans.

The mailer arrived Thursday addressed to Ladra’s “family,” which include a Republican, a Democrat and an NPA who plan to vote Sept. 26. It didn’t come to the Republican. It didn’t go to the Independent. It came to the family. We imagine it was sent to both Republicans and NPAs, which could decide this election.

The district is about a third Dem, a third GOP and a third NPA. That means that the NPAs are going to be heavily courted in the general. They even have their own candidate in the race, sociology professor Christian “He-Man” Schlaerth.

Read related story: Democrats start to hit Jose Felix Diaz — before the GOP primary is over

Independents already recieved mail, during the primary, against Diaz from the Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which sent at least three mailers casting Diaz as a lobbyist looking out for special interests. No wonder the Diaz campaign came back trying to define him early on as a “tax cutter.”

Or, actually, the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which paid for this mailer, which is pretty much a tit for tat, hurry-up-and-let’s-define-our-guy-before-they-do piece: “Vote for the tax cutter Jose Felix Diaz September 26th.”

It’s a tremendous reach.

It gives Diaz credit for creating the tax holidays for school supplies and storm supplies, although that was part of a package that he voted on as a member of the House. It also says he voted to put the additional $25,000 homestead exemption to voters next November, a move that many say was calculated by the Republican leadership to drum up turnout in a mid-year election. A move that cities and counties are dreading will leave them with less funds to pay for things like police and paramedics and buses and road maintenance.

One has to believe that the FRSCC — the fundraising arm for Senate Republican leaders, controlled by future Senate presidents Bill Galvano and Wilton Simpson — will be more creative and more forthright with more time. The turnout for this election is going to be the super voter. Also called the “high quality” voter. That means the educated voter. They aren’t going to buy this lazy crap.

And hasn’t anyone told them not to put open scissors on a positive piece with their candidate’s name on it? Campaign 101.

Read related story: Winners and losers in special election for SD 40 and HD116

The campaign committee just announced a $100,000 donation from the Republican State Leadership Committee, an organization of Republican state officials intent on keeping this seat red, and they would do well to use the money more wisely on messages that will connect with the super voters instead of this dribble.

The Senate District 40 seat had been Democrat for decades before Frank Artiles beat former Sen. Dwight Bullard in an ugly race last year that was marked by negative ads that cast Bullard as a terrorist sympathizer. Artiles was forced to resign in April after he was caught making racist remarks to black legislators at a Tallahassee eatery one night.

Diaz, who was heavily endorsed by his BFF and former Tallahasee roommate Artiles (they are photographed at the beginning of session here), won the GOP primary on Tuesday and will face Democrat Annette Taddeo in September.

And if this mailer is any indication, it’s gonna be a busy couple of months.

So far and between the five of them, the candidates in the Senate 40 race last week spent close to $3 million to replace Frank Artiles, who was forced to resign in April after he was caught making racist remarks to black legislators in a public place.

Key words: So far.

The Republican primary paid the bulk of that and due to former State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, who spent a whopping $2.1 million between his campaign and his political action committee, Rebuild Florida. That translates to about $274.78 per vote for the 7,678 GOP voters who made him their nominee for the September general. That is as of the latest reports through July 20. He will have spent more in the last five days and we will know how much when the next reports come in. It could easily be a total of $3 million all by himself the way Diaz was buying TV buys and mail, which would drive that ballot price up to $390 a vote.

And we can’t yet determine what was spent on his behalf through the Making a Better Tomorrow PAC because it has not reported any expenses for June (more on that later). So, his election could have. arguably, cost more than $400 a vote.

Read related story: Jose Felix Diaz and Annette Taddeo win SD40 with more money, mail

Diaz easily paid the most for his overwhelming 58-26 victory and some (read: Dem choice Annette Taddeo and her supporters) will say he bought this election.

Former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who mostly self-funded his campaign with a $443,500 loan (for a total of $496,220), paid the next highest per vote, at $146.03 for each of his 3,398 votes. But he didn’t spend the money very wisely. Ladra didn’t hear much radio and saw one TV commercial on the weekend before the vote, after he had already lost via absentee ballots. I don’t think this house got one mailer from him. Guess most of his nut really went to buying the fake followers on Twitter.

Lorenzo Palomares, while still way behind with only $85,900 to spend (and $62,500 of that was his own loan to himself), still spent more than twice as much as the highest spending Democrat. Palomares, who might have done better had he kept the Starbuck name, spent $38 each for the 2,217 votes he got.

Read related story: Democrats start to hit Jose Felix Diaz — before the GOP primary is over

In the Democratic contest, Taddeo had more money, with $122,548 between her campaign account and her PAC, Fight Back Florida. It allowed her to spend $17.26 per vote because she had 7,101 people vote for her (only 580 people fewer than voted for Diaz with his $2.1 mil). Former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan, who raised only $13,600, spent $4.51 for each of her 2,941 votes.

Of course, all these ballot prices — which could be record-breaking (does anyone know?) — will increase when the final reports are in next month. But this gives us a peek at the exorbitant amount of money Republicans spent to try to keep this seat, which they just flipped in November, red.

You can be sure that the general will see at least as much, if not much more spent. Diaz is a prolific fundraiser and while Taddeo is not, the Democrats want to keep that seat and will turn to national donors in order to do it. She’ll spend more than $122,000 in the next two months. She has to close the gap ($17.26 vs. $275) if she wants to compete in this next round.

The political consultants and graphic houses that are working on this campaign should send Artiles a #thanksFrank gift basket.