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.

As always, it is not only the candidates with the most votes who win on Election night.

While there were hopefuls who came out on top — or not — in the primaries for House District 116 and Senate District 30 Tuesday, there are others who didn’t necessarily share the ballot but share in the victory, or defeat.

So without further ado, here are the other winners and losers in Tuesday’s special election.

WINNERS:

Steve Marin — This veteran political operative saw both his clients win Tuesday and win with double digits. Former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz won by 32 points against former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, which is notable, especially since early polls had DLP up by 30-plus, and nobody newby Daniel Anthony Perez beat establishment favorite Jose Mallea by a very respectable 10 points. This is a nice feather in the cap of Steve Marin and Sons as they head into the city of Miami elections, where they represent Commissioner Francis Suarez‘s bid for mayor. He also billed a total of about $250,000 between both clients. Sure, some of it was for mailers, signs and other materials, but he makes a percentage off that also. And there’s no way to tell how much of it is for printing and how much is for consulting because it’s all lumped in together.

David “Dis” Custin — He may not be a nice guy, heck it’s probably because he’s not a nice guy that he is a prolific mailer. If your candidate needs a negative piece against an opponent,, David Discustin’ Custin is your man. He was both Diaz’s man and Perez’s man in this race. And he banked, too, billing more than $1.2 million in the past couple of months. While the builk of that goes to TV buys, Custin gets kickbacks (going rate is 15% but volume gets more), and, for the amount of time he’s buying, gets free minutes he can then bill Diaz or someone else for.  Annette Taddeo, ten cuidado. Grow that thick skin quick, chica. Because now Discustin is coming after you.

Annette Taddeo fans — Anyone who has stuck by the perennial candidate this long deserves their moment in the sun for sheer loyalty. After four other races — two Congressional bids, a county commission run and the Lt. Gov. thing with Charlie Crist (am I forgetting one? I feel like I’m forgetting one) — Taddeo finally has a win notch on her belt. And, more importantly, her longtime suffering supporters do, too. Good for them!

Christian “He-Man” Schlaerth — The turnout was so abysmal for the primary — and the choices we are left with are so mediocre — that this NPA candidate actually might have a chance in the general Sept. 26. He certainly thinks so. “The voters of Senate District 40 today decided to stay home rather than participate in a process devoid of any real policies, marred by negative campaigning and tainted by spending for the primary exceeding the obscene amount of $3 million,” reads a press release from the campaign for He-Man, who gets his nickname from his Rugby mates. The stats: Only 14% of the registered Republicans voted and 11% of the registered Dems cast ballots. Ladra must admit, many of the voters in District 40 that I know, including the Republican and the Democrat that live in this very house, did not vote on Tuesday. “None of the candidates deserve a moment of my time,” the Republican said, while the Democrat asked “What election? There was an election?”

LOSERS: 

Tania Cruz — This social climber’s name was sullied by the salacious news that she had been holed up with Dean DLP in a Boston hotel room in 2012 and they were arrested when, in typical drunken beligerent fashion for both of them, they refused to stop chain smoking in a non-smoking room. Now, she can’t upgrade from the son of a county mayor to a state senator. At least she got paid $2,000, according to his very curious campaign finance report, for her, ahem, legal services.

Carlos Gimenez and fam — Our county mayor pulled his support from Pepi Diaz after the news of his daughter-in-law broke — though Ladra strongly suspects it was Dean DLP who brilliantly leaked the story out himself. Furthermore, his lobbyist tarrudo son and his other rachetera daughter-in-law both campaigned for DLP during early voting (that’s CJ Gimenez standing next to DLP, holding his sign). Que pena. I know. Pobre Lourdes. But, more seriously, could our needy county pay the consequences from our next senator if Diaz is elected? Gimenez should have stayed out of it.

The Brothers DLP — This is the fifth loss for a Diaz de la Portilla in as many years and no matter how glib he is today, this one hurts. Because Alex was actually kind of trying this time, unlike his defeat in 2012 for state rep against Jose Javier Rodriguez, when he was really just drinking too much and running away to smoke in Boston hotel rooms and ranting in his parents’ Little Havana Florida room where he lives with his dogs. That’s the same year that his brother Renier Diaz de la Portilla lost his state rep bid against Manny Diaz, Jr. In between 2012 and today, Renier lost again in a judicial race and, in what was the real upset, big brother Miguel Diaz de la Portilla lost his Senate seat last year to Rodriguez, who has become a family nemesis. Could it be that the DLP dynasty is dead politically? Maybe they should switch parties. People just don’t believe they are as conservative as they pretend to be, what with all the late night hotel cigarette smoking and other family issues.

Jeb Bush — The endorsement from this former Florida governor and failed presidential hopeful just doesn’t carry the weight it used to before he blew it in his campaign for the Republican POTUS nomination last year. It certainly didn’t help Mallea against Daniel Perez in the House District 116 race. Note to future candidates: Don’t bother. Just ask Ted Cruz (no relation to Tania).

Did I miss someone who obviously benefited or lost something in this race? Please feel free to add your own winners and losers in the comments below.

And we’ll see you back here for another episode of winners and losers on Sept. 27 (the general is Sept. 26).

In the contest for State House District 116, the lesser financed, lesser known, lesser backed candidate not only won, but won with a 10-point spread.

And Republican Daniel Anthony Perez, a nobody from nowhere running for his first time, can basically celebrate becoming an elected today because everybody knows that whoever won this primary will win the general against that poser “Democrat” that the party propped up (more on that again later).

Perez got 55% to Jose Mallea‘s 45%, despite the latter being an establishment darling with a little more money and ties to Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush, both of whom he worked for as an aide, in the race to replace Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz, who resigned from the House to run for the Senate and won his own GOP primary Tuesday. Both Bush and former House Speaker Will Weatherford endorsed him, but not Marco, even though Mallea maybe tried to make it look like the one-time presidential hopeful backed him in one of his mailers.

How did Perez — who was endorsed by State Rep. Carlos Trujillo — pull ahead? By working harder, he said.

Read related story: Cuba engagement photos become issue in GOP 116 primary

“We won this election by knocking on more than 7,000 doors,” Perez wrote to Ladra in a text message late Tuesday. “My family and friends were a huge part. Every day for four months. this election came down to personal relationships with residents of District 116.”

It proably wasn’t by spending more money, because they were both about equal. According to the campaign reports filed this month, Perez had raised $168,000 — about half of it in the last six weeks — to Mallea’s $245,000, which includes a last minute loan to himself of $24,000. Of course, Perez had help from the Conservatives for Truth political action committee (connected to House Speaker Richard Corcoran and future Speaker Jose Oliva) that spent at least $40,000 on mailers attacking Mallea, who was also an aide to former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, a high profile Democrat, about tax increases during his tenure at the city.

And I don’t think it was the Cuba thing.

Mallea blasted Perez, and rightfully so, in mail and on video for having gone to Havana for an engagement album photo shoot with his fiancee. Perez said it was to visit a sick uncle and Ladra doesn’t know if she believes him. But it didn’t matter anyway. That kind of attack is not going to resonate with voters when everyone knows someone who goes to Cuba or even has sent medicine and clothing there for relatives. It’s just not as taboo anymore. And Mallea — who we later learned had Cuba ties of his own through a friend that’s a Castro apologist — counted far too much on outrage that never materialized.

Maybe, however, it was the Cuban thing. You don’t have to like it, and Ladra does not, but the whisper campaign that Mallea was not 100% Cuban (his mother is Ecuadorian) works with some older Cuban-American voters. And there are some 80,000 or so of them in this district. It works especially well when paired with his Castro apologist friend versus a cute cubanito named Danny Perez. It wasn’t pretty, but Mallea opened the door. Perez might not have said he was the only real Cuban in the race if Mallea had not attacked his engagement photos and called them a betrayal to the Cuban people.

Read related story: Democrat recruit for House 116 was a Republican yesterday

Or maybe it was the Pepi Diaz coat tails thing. Both Perez and Diaz share some political consultants (Steve Marin and David “Dis” Custin) and many lawns in the district boast the same yard signs.

Mallea will live and learn from this and run again, mark Ladra’s words. We have not seen the last of him.

But, for now, we fully expect Mallea to back Perez, not that he needs it against Gabriela Mayaudon (right), a Broward woman who wants to be elected in Venezuela (more on that later) and wasn’t registered to vote when the Democratic Party first recruited her to run for this seat.

Again, Perez won not just the primary Tuesday, but the general as well. Congratulations State Representative.

Now, about open primaries…

Former State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz turned a 30-plus point deficit in early polls into a 32-point lead Tuesday when he won the special election for Senate District 40, beating former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla by a whopping 58 to 26 percent.

Someone tell Ladra again how negative campaigns don’t work. Or how money doesn’t matter.

Dean DLP, who must be in Europe already, came into the #thanksFrank race — scheduled after Frank Artiles was forced to resign on the heels of some public racist and sexist comments — with high name recognition that gave him a lead in his internal poll and a state GOP poll, too. But not all name reccognition is equal. Some of it is negative. Some of the positive name ID is soft, meaning it can be easily peeled away with a negative campaign of more than $2 million — what Ladra suspects is a record for a primary (more on that later) — that hit Diaz de la Portilla with near daily mailers on not just on his voting and campaign record but his messy personal life.

In other words, people figured out it wasn’t big brother Miguel. The elder and more diplomatic DLP represented the area as a county commissioner and is much more popular than the meaner middle brother any day of the week. He didn’t even beat third place finisher Lorenzo Palomares, who got 17%, by double digits.

Even though Alex DLP loaned himself close to $443,500 — $393,500 in the last month and nobody knows where he gets that kind of money — it was too little, too late. Ditto for his short, last-minute, Spanish-language TV commercial casting Diaz as a lobbyist pushing the soccer stadium that was seen in this household exactly once. By then, Alex already had lost in the absentee ballots, even with expert AB fraudster and former Miami Commissioner Humberto Hernandez working on his team, according to the latest campaign report (more on that later).

Perennial candidate Annette Taddeo, who finally won her first race Tuesday — and how! Trouncing former State. Rep. Ana Rivas Logan with 71% of the vote — isn’t making the same mistake. Or her supporters aren’t, anyway. The Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has already been hitting Diaz with mailers to independent NPA voters casting him as a lobbyist who represents special interests in Tallahassee. It is smart to define him early as a lobbyist. Now Diaz has to spend time, and money, fighting that.

And he will. While Diaz seems to have spent his whole $2 million nut already, he knows where to get more. And the GOP will also spend its dollars to keep this seat from going blue again after winning it this past November. Taddeo, who almost physically cried to Michael Putney about the mailers that attacked how she invested her daughter’s trust fund (cue to roll your eyes) is going to have to get thicker skin. Because that is child’s play compared to what is coming. For someone as experienced in running as she is, Taddeo’s never been in a race like this.

Preparate, mujer! Her psychologisst husband may have to squeeze in a session or two for her.

She also has to raise more money than she ever has. She was able to win the primary with $120,000, between her campaign account and her Fight Back Florida political action committee combined. That was more than Rivas Logan, who maybe will have spent $15,000 of her own campaign money by the time the final reports are in. Rivas Logan did get the help from the Floridians for Accountability PAC that spent about $200,000 in the last two months, which we can guess was mostly on this race and mostly on negative attacks against Rivas Logan.

Maybe negative attacks only work when they are million dollar negative attacks.

Taddeo and Democrats are going to have to step their fundraising up if they expect to compete in the general. While the district is pretty evenly split, and was represented by Democrat former Sen. Dwight Bullard and his family for years before Artiles beat him — in, yep, a negative campaign last year — the numbers from the primary show that more Republicans voted (13,293) than Democrats (10,042) in this special election, a trend that is likely to follow into the general. Taddeo is going to need to keep her cool, raise more cash and attract more than the just the super angry Democrats to win on Sept. 26.

That’s a tall order.

Read related story: Both Democrats in SD40 race are compared to Donald Trump

And don’t expect any help from Rivas Logan, who lost with an abysmal 29% (which is still better than DLP) in a race that nobody cared much about except for the really angry Dems who remember Rivas Logan as a Republican, even before Taddeo’s PAC started attacking her as a turncoat. Which was pretty funny considering Taddeo ran for Lt. Gov. only last year with Mr. King Turncoat Charlie Crist.

Taddeo did not return calls and texts to her cellphone. But a statement she issued sounds like she is far too encouraged by the blowout in the primary, which she should not take as a sign that this will be easy.

“Our campaign is ready to take our people powered message to every voter in our district so we can bring change to Tallahassee. It’s time our community rejects the special interests and their lobbyist, Jose Felix Diaz and elect a champion who will fight for our public schools, take on traffic gridlock and enhance our healthcare system. With tonight’s decisive victory, we can, and will, send a loud message in September that the politics of division coming from President Trump and Washington, D.C. will not be tolerated in South Florida. Together, we will make history by electing the first Hispanic Democratic woman to the Florida Senate and a champion for our families.”

Rivas Logan could have been that, too. But she couldn”t even motivate the 5,002 people who voted for her in last August’s primary — where she came in second without campaigning — to vote in this race, maybe it’s best that she hang up her spurs.

“Right now, I’m going on vacation,” Rivas Logan told Ladra Tuesday night, shortly after calling and texting Taddeo (and getting no response). “I wish her well,” she said, adding that she was retiring this fall as a school teacher and retiring from politics altogether. She won’t even go on TV anymore, she said.

“It was my last race. I had nothing to lose. I’m going to retire and travel.”

She also said she was a bit relieved she did not have to face Pepi Diaz again, after he attacked her in 2012 when they were drawn into the same House seat through redistricting.

“I do think the seat now will stay in Republican hands,” Rivas Logan added.

Doesn’t sound like an endorsement card to Ladra.

Thank the political gods that millionaire Miami pioneer heir Bruce Matheson also smelled something fishy about Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s special no-bid deal to sell a county-owned parcel in Overtown to the Beckham United group that wants to build a soccer stadium there.

Matheson — who has the money and gravitas that comes from a track record of fighting Big Sports — filed a lawsuit last week to stop the sale of the property at 684 NW 7th St., used by the county’s water and sewer department as mostly a storage depot for equipment, to David Beckham and his business partners. They want to put it together with other adjacent parcels they have bought so they can build a stadium for a promised but as-yet unexisting professional soccer team. And the county commission approved the sale for $9 million last month.

The crux of the lawsuit is that the county should have issued a request for proposals for the property once the property was deemed surplus, and that the commission should then have chosen the highest paying bidder, as state and county laws require.

Because, after all, the process is not supposed to be rigged to benefit any particular person or soccer star. And the mayor of the county isn’t supposed to arbitrarily put a property on surplus all of a sudden to benefit the father of his campaign fundraiser.

That is what happened, folks. This property was not on the surplus list already. In fact, the 7 and 7 building — as it is known among county employees because it’s on 7th Avenue and 7th Street — was getting ready for renovations to remove asbestos. Furthermore, Ladra has been told by a couple of different sources that the county is looking to buy or lease another property so it can house the overflow of equipment and trucks — as well as staff parking for a nearby facility — that are at the 7 and 7 building now.

But the property was curiously put on the surplus list after the Beckham group purchased an adjacent lot owned by Chris and Tom Korge and Barry Goldmeier, father of Brian Goldmeier, who makes a great living raising campaign funds for Gimenez and his allies. That 1.37 acres, purchased in 2006 for $1.3 million went for $6.2 million to Beckham. But it is arguable that it wouldn’t have sold at all if the county land, which is three adjacent acres needed for the stadium site, wasn’t suddenly made surplus with a wave of the mayor’s magic wand. Remember, Gimenez signed a letter of intent to sell the land in December of 2015. The subpoenas that come with a lawsuit may tell us whether or not he was pressured or convinced to put the property on surplus so he could sell it cheap, like the mayor did with the land up in Northwest Miami-Dade that was subsequently bought by the American Dream Mall.

Read related story: Carlos Gimenez’s pals own land for/near new soccer stadium

Matheson’s lawsuit states that the county sold the land based on an old appraisal — before adjacent land sales — and at $69 per square foot, when the lot next door was purchased by Beckham’s group for $103 a square foot.

Talk about a sweetheart deal. Such a deal that Matheson said he would buy it himself at that price. I bet a lot of people would.

Ladra thinks the lawsuit will shed light on many irregularities in the process. We will get a full vetting of the history of this property and find out things that Gimenez certainly didn’t want us to know.

Like the fact that this parcel was originally taken by the county in 1971 through eminent domain proceedings against the Canada Dry Bottling Co., which was paid $60,445 for the land and moving costs, and a few other property owners, according to Miami-Dade Circuit Court records (case nos. 69-12503, 69-15943 and 69-16872). J. C. Devine Company, an Ohio corporation, owned one of the lots taken through eminent domain for $225,979. Eric and Fay Manville owned a third parcel with Minnie Barnett Johns and Chauncey and Estelle Walden. Manville was paid $21,940, Barnett $28,325 and the Waldens got $24,650 for their losses.

Records show that the court allowed Dade County to take these lands from these private land owners through eminent domain “for the public purpose of urban renewal contemplating the clearing and redevelopment of a slum area.”

Apparently, the county felt that using the lot as an overflow station for trucks and backhoes and excavating equipment for most of the past 45 years was “urban renewal.” In light of the use its had, then certainly a stadium may be more in line with that public purpose of redevelopment.

But so would a park. Or affordable housing. Or an artists’ co-op space. Or a tech start-up hub. At the very least, shouldn’t there have been a conversation about what to have there? The lawsuit seems to have opened the door for that chat. Better late than never.

Mike Hernandez, the mayor’s mouthpiece, has already blasted the lawsuit (like he blasted the Skyrise Miami lawsuit and we saw how that went). His comment in the Miami Herald story, as always, targets the messenger in an obvious attempt to change the narrative. “It’s apparent that Mr. Matheson hates professional sports,” Hernández said, referring to the man’s fight to keep the Miami Open tennis tournament at Crandon, public land his family donated to the county, from expanding and privatizing the park.

“He’s doing his best to drive out the Miami Open from Key Biscayne, and now he hopes to block Major League Soccer from coming to Miami,” said Hernandez, who is an extraordinary spin doctor and is taking the side of Big Sports against the Joe Public. Notice he did not even address the procedural irregularities. Because it’s easier to create a boogie man and make it about that than it is to defend the lack of transparency and due process in this administration.

Read related story: King Petty Carlos Gimenez gets goofy over soccer stadium

The county will say that Beckham got the no-bid deal, approved by the commission last month, in exchange for a package of community benefits that include hiring locals and salary requirements. The problem is that those things have become common requests of any developer coming to town asking any kind of variance or site plan approval and commissioners certainly could have offered the same opportunity for others to bring those same benefits to the table.

Also, to comply with the requirements of eminent domain, at least some of the proceeds from that sale, we believe, have to go to some kind of urban renewal project in the neighborhood. Not to the lease or purchase of an additional property to take the facility’s place (because it wasn’t really surplus to begin with).

Wouldn’t a bidding war — or even just selling it at true market value — benefit the taxpayers of Miami-Dade? Especially at a time when the mayor is saying we have no money for light rail and, in fact, cutting transit services and hiring only a net gain of 12 new officers for 2.5 million people? Wouldn’t a full conversation about options for “urban renewal” on this property benefit the people of Spring Garden, who are afraid the stadium will break their quality of life, and really everybody?

Of course it would. Yes, yes and yes. But there was never an honest conversation about options because this was rushed through. Hurry, hurry! Mr. Beckham needs this to get his team. Mr. Beckham needs this vote to get his financing. Hurry, hurry!

Also, by the way, a judge is not the only one that can stop this stadium or slow it down if she or he rules in favor of Matheson, who lives in Spring Garden (and thank the political gods he does because that gives him standing in court). The county commission may have to revisit the sale it approved June 6 anyway, regardless, because of a requirement — imposed by Commissioner and DUI ducker Jose “Pepe” Diaz, channeling the Godfather — that county cops be hired for overtime inside the facility. The city of Miami has an issue with setting a precedent on a private facility hiring county officers for OT rather than city cops.

Gimenez already publicly said that he could renegotiate the deal to address that issue. But if the county can undo the police OT requirement that means they can likely undo more. Maybe all of it? At the very least, they can try to get a better deal for the taxpayers they are supposed to represent. Or a better project.

Commissioners are always saying that they wish they could rewrite the Marlins stadium deal and here is a chance to rewrite the soccer stadium deal. They could open it up to proposals and let the highest bidder win. If the best use and highest bidder happens to be the soccer stadium, then so be it.

If not, then they’ll know they did the right thing.

Oh, who is Ladra kidding? It’s going to take a judge. Thank the political gods for Bruce Matheson.