Another negative mailer connecting Donald Trump to a candidate arrived in mailboxes this week. But this one attacks a fellow Democrat — and one who had suspended her campaign, no less.

And this time, it may have backfired — because former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan is a little riled and refuses to withdraw her name from the ballot.

Trust fund baby Andrew Korge is apparently so afraid of Rivas Logan’s pull and name rec — even without her spending a dime on mailers or ads — that he hit her with an attack ad this week saying Trump and Rivas Logan are “right wingers with a lot in common.”

The one Ladra got to see was in Spanish and arrived Tuesday — long after the Democrat in our house voted, by the way. “Logan y Trump son extremistas de la ultraderecha,” says the one side. Do we even have to translate that? Then it says that “Ana Rivas Logan’s vote history would make Donald Trump proud.”

Read related story: Ana Rivas Logan switches parties to back (up?) Charlie Crist

It cites votes she made in the state house in favor of the NRA (for open carry) and against teachers (for teacher testing) and public schools (for school vouchers) and against a woman’s right to choose (for waiting periods and required ultrasounds).

But what it doesn’t explain is that Rivas Logan was, indeed, a Republican at one time. She turned blue after her party turned its back on her and espoused what she calls an anti-immigrant stance.

And guess what? She was considered a soft or weak Republican back then. Some called her a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Not totally right wing. She didn’t always vote with the party, and was someone who could build consensus across the aisle. That’s why her colleagues abandoned her to support State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz in 2012 after they were drawn into the same district.

Read related story: Outing non-Cubans in Miami politics

Rivas Logan must be psychic. She suspended her campaign because she knew that there would be negative mailers coming. She probably got the inkling when Andrew Korge visited her and urged her (read: tried to bully her) to run for another seat. According to several sources, the state attorney’s office has interviewed several people about Korge’s alleged shakedown tactics, which include an alleged bribe of $25,000 to Sen. Dwight Bullard to change seats, too.

Anyway, Ana’s parents are elderly. When she announced she would suspend her campaign, she said she was doing it to take care of her parents. What she meant was she didn’t want them to have a heart attack over another mailer saying she wasn’t really Cuban, like Jose Felix Diaz sent.

“Balancing the care my parents need and what will be in-the-gutter campaign tactics by some in the race, I have chosen to suspend my campaign today knowing that my future in public service is not over,” Rivas Logan wrote in a note to supporters. Key words: “Not over.”

Well, since suspending the race didn’t stop the attacks, Rivas Logan seems to be getting re-engaged.

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

“I am not going to be intimidated and I am not going to withdraw my name from the ballot,” Rivas Logan told me, adding that she was asked by the Korge Camp to officially withdraw, which would cause the elections department to toss out any votes for her (or not count them).

As it stands, votes for Ana Rivas Logan count. And she could win.

And Ladra bets she does. That’s why Korge is attacking her. His poll numbers show the same thing that Ladra hears from other political observers and consultants. Rivas Logan’s name rec is enviable. She has served that same constituency as a state rep and as a school board member. She is considered a good Cuban mother and daughter by the predominantly Cuban voter bloc. And she’s gotten a lot of valuable earned media in recent months in both English and Spanish precisely because she is one of the few Hispanic Democrats in Miami-Dade (she and former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez should charge a fee for their appearances).

In other words, she really doesn’t need to do anything. This mailer will backfire with some people and let them know she is still in the race. Others will just see her name on the ballot and bubble in that number.

That’s a good thing. Because she doesn’t have any money to do anything. She hasn’t raised any funds since mid July, for two reporting periods, and has about $14,000 in hand.

What sucks is that the Florida Democratic Party, out of a delusional sense of duty to incumbent Sen. Bullard, refused to help Rivas Logan in the primary. And they should have. Because she is best suited to beat Republican State Rep. Frank Artiles — who has already started sending mailers to independent voters in the district, no less (more on that later).

Korge also hit Bullard again. Ladra’s house received the same mailer yesterday calling the senator untrustworthy and citing multiple campaign violations and fines. This time, in Spanish. Korge also has sent a few touting himself as the new breath of the Democrat party. In fact, Ladra bets that he has the most mailers of any candidate in any state race so far.

Wouldn’t it be funny if Ana won without mailing a single one?

The private detective that uncovered absentee ballot fraud in the Miami-Dade August 2012 election has nabbed yet another person committing electoral fraud — this time selling “access” to elderly voters, which we have to interpret as access to absentee ballots.

Joe Carillo told Ladra Thursday he would give details Friday about his latest sting operation, in which he gets a woman to allegedly offer access to elderly public housing residents. She also reveals some of her clients and declines a new one because she is working for the opposition. The clients are all judicial candidates, according to a list that she, for whatever reason, voluntarily provided: Elena Tauler, Yolly Roberson, Wendell Graham, Luis Perez-Medina, Lizzet Martinez, Rosy Aponte and Marcia del Rey. And that is her order, not mine.

But there may be other candidates, Carrillo said.

It’s been four years since Carrillo brought wide exposure to a longtime secret election tool used by the savvyist and most ethically challenged campaign strategists: la boletera.

Deisy Cabrera, la boletera, with Sen. Rene Garcia and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez at the opening of the mayor’s Hialeah campaign office in 2012.

These ballot brokers collect absentee or mail-in ballots, mostly from elderly and public housing residents, for a fee. Carrillo, and later the Miami-Dade Police public corruption unit, tracked one of them going in and out of Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s Hialeah campaign office in 2012. Deisy Penton de Cabrera was later stopped with dozens of absentee ballots on her, a clear violation of the law. She was arrested, but after the case was transferred to Broward because of a conflict of interest (Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle had hired the consultant who worked with Deisy), she was let go with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Read related story: Boletera’s notebooks may script AB fraud cover-up

Worse: There was never a follow up into the three notebooks of names, including judicial candidates, for whom Cabrera was paid to pick up ballots. And the detectives who were in charge of that investigation were disbanded and sent to different posts when the public corruption unit was dismantled in 2014. So, basically, there’s nobody watching the store today. (Well, except for Joe Carrillo.)

Nothing happened either to Sergio “El Tio” Robaina — and just guess whose uncle he is — even though he was arrested for delivering hundreds of absentee ballots to the district office of Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo, who didn’t get so much as a slap on the wrist. That whole thing — including the commissioner’s aide who was caught transporting the ballots in the trunk of her car from his office to the mail house — was just swept under the rug.

Dotty Vazquez didn’t get a slap on the wrist either. Oh, you never heard of her because she never got caught. So, instead, she got a job at the mayor’s office. She is now one of 12 mayor’s aides (and yes, that sounds excessive, but that’s another story).

A known boletera — just ask any number of Hialeah former electeds — Dotty was paid at least $10,000 from Mayor Gimenez’s Common Sense Now PAC in 2012 for “consulting,” according to campaign finance reports. And we all know she’s not a consultant. That’s just one of the many code words used for boletera work. Here’s Dotty pictured (right) with Gimenez at the same 2012 Hialeah campaign opening that Cabrera attended. Since at least 2014, however, she has been a $36,000-a-year mayor’s aide. Ladra has to wonder how she uses her skill set there. Or how she spends her days. Especially this week, after absentee ballots were mailed out to voters. We know she spends Saturdays at honk and wave events with Transit Director Alice Bravo, but that’s another story. And let’s face it, both their jobs depend on Gimenez staying the boss.

The point is that the State Attorney’s Office doesn’t have to look too far to find boleteros. And, obviously, all they have to do is follow some of these people for a few days or stage a simple sting. But nooooo. It takes, again, a private citizen outraged with the blatant fraud going on to try to put a stop to it.

Read related story: AB fraud PI is a hero until proven otherwise

Carrillo said he and attorney Rick Yabor had received information about the woman selling “access” to voters at Robert King High, an elderly public housing building in Little Havana, about four weeks ago. They immediately contacted the state attorney’s office and were told that they would initiate an undercover operation only if they got a current candidate involved. Can you imagine that? Are they that short-staffed at public corruption or are they just lazy? Carrillo said he and Yabor met with several candidates and none would participate in the sting for fear of political retribution.

So they set up their own undercover operation and sent investigators to meet with the woman. “And the target offered to grant ‘special access’ to elderly voters for a fee,” Carrillo said in a press release advising of a press conference Friday. “The target advised investigators of candidates that she was ‘helping.’ The target further advised that she refused to help certain other candidates because she had been paid by their opponents.”

Carillo would not provide Ladra with any more details. He would not tell her whether or not Gimenez or Fernandez Rundle are implicated yet again. But at least two of the judicial candidates hired Al Lorenzo, the same consultant who was tainted in the 2012 AB fraud scandal. Carrillo said more details would come out Friday.

Apparently, he is giving the State Attorney’s Office time to move on their own investigation. Carrillo said he told prosecutors about his findings on Tuesday. Investigators worked with Diario las Americas to produce the evidence. Perhaps this press conference is intended to pressure prosecutors. It certainly should at the very least embarrass them that a couple of P.I.s can do a better job, again, than the public corruption unit at the biggest county in the state.

Because right now, the message sent to boleteras is that they don’t get punished in Miami-Dade. They get $36,000-a-year county jobs.

As expected, Miami Lakes Mayor Michael Pizzi qualified at the last minute, just before noon Wednesday to run for re-election, making this race a heated four-man contest.

Wait a minute, make that a three-way: Councilman Ceasar Mestre has withdrawn his candidacy. In a long Facebook post over the weekend, Mestre told his supporters that he had missed too much time with his loved ones, “missed family trips, birthday parties, school activities, movies” because of the campaign.

“I have always said my most important title is ‘dad’, yet it was becoming less important. When you are competitive, it’s easy to get caught up in the campaign and lose perspective,” Mestre wrote in the heartfelt post. “I kept saying only until November, but should I win, and become Mayor , it would only be worse.”

Read related story: Miami Lakes voters say ‘yes’ 10 times, and cut mayor’s powers

He said that the mayor’s post in Miami Lakes has “turned into more than a fulltime position as future political ambitions dictate the rhythm. To some, this may be o.k. To me it’s not. I have been blessed with a good career and a great family. The price to pay for this endeavor is something I am unwilling to give. I have observed what this can do to families and most times , it’s not a good result… So I have decided not to continue with this campaign.”

And as if to drive the point home, he posted the news with pictures while on a family vacation in Canada.

So that leaves Pizzi to fight off Councilman Manny Cid and founding mayor Wayne Slaton.

In a statement, Pizzi said he only decided to file for his third term after “hundreds of town residents flooded his law office this past week asking him to continue as mayor and help improve the town.” We doubt this. We predicted he would want to keep his job and also he would file last minute.

Pizzi also said, in the same statement, that he was “looking at an intense campaign ahead,” but that he was ready.

Read related story: Young GOP VIPs back Manny Cid for Miami Lakes mayor

“I love being mayor more than anything else because of the many great things I can get done for our Miami Lakes residents,” he said in his classic way of saying nothing. “It has been a great honor to serve as Miami Lake mayor these past eight years that’s why I have filed for re-election.”

Cid is considered the front runner, and more so now that Mestre dropped out (curiously it was after that big GOP VIP event for his colleague). But Manny better have his game on. Because, despite his caricature-like personality and seeming legal and ethical foibles, Pizzi has a solid group of people who blindly follow and adore him. Yes, it is kind of like a cult.

Pizzi may have really heavy baggage — a bribery arrest, suspension from office, a pricey legal battle to get back in office after acquittal and that hit and run with a tree in the middle of the night (read: dodged DUI). And all this is fresh baggage because he had old baggage ($200K stolen from his office, saying he wanted to plant drugs on a council member’s car) dogging him for years. But his supporters only see what they want to see.

Read related story: Michael Pizzi sues Miami Lakes for $3.2 million in legal fees

And Ladra would not be surprised if members of that cult were among the other eight candidates for the three council seats that are also on the ballot.

Councilman Tony Lama is challenged by attorney Elizabeth Delgado Mizrahi and Councilman Nelson Rodriguez has two opponents, attorney Alex Dehghani and Xiomara Pazos, who ran against Mestre in 2014 (64 to 36%).

There are three candidates vying for the seat vacated by Cid. They are Luis Collazo, Esther Colon and Nayib Hassan.

And we will learn more about all these people — and the cults they belong to — in weeks to come. Stay tuned.

Two different mailers for Andrew Korge arrived in mailboxes Monday, a day before the absentee ballots are mailed in Miami-Dade: One was positive and one was negative.

Way negative.

Korge, challenging Sen. Dwight Bullard in the Democratic primary in District 40, basically says Bullard is untrustworthy and living off his campaign funds. The mailer also brings up Bullard’s multiple campaign violations and fines, including a $5,000 fine from May, which, the piece adds, the senator has not paid. It says he has a “nonstop disregard for campaign laws.”

“Bullard’s consulting firm was paid $19,000 from his own campaign,” the mailer states in a series of bullets marked with currency bills. “Bullard’s campaign made more than $14,000 improper petty cash withdrawals.”

The mailer also says that Bullard used his campaign to buy more than $1,500 in personal clothing and over $7,600 in food and drink at restaurant and bars, including Hooters and Wet Willies.

That’s something that people have known for a while and it’s something that is not singular to Bullard — or Democrats. Just take alook at State Rep. Frank Artiles‘ reports.

But as far as negative mailers go, this one — with carefully positioned photos of Bullard and flying 100 dollar bills all over — is pretty classic with its brown and black and yellow. In contrast, the positive Spanish-language bio piece is blue and green and orange and includes pictures of Korge with his family and with President Bill Clinton.

These two are the third and fourth, or maybe fourth and fifth mailer from Korge to the Democrat voter in Ladra’s household. We haven’t gotten one mailer from Bullard.

Bullard told Ladra we’d get one this week. He, too, was waiting for absentee ballots to drop. “I don’t have $700,000 of my dad’s money floating around. So we waited.”

The senator has told the Miami Herald — and then the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office — that Korge tried to bribe him off the ballot with $25,000 (more on that later) and that the trust fund kid speaks Clintonese when he says “I unequivocally did not offer $25,000 cash.”

He also said he expected that some people to go home today to find the negative hit piece in their mailbox and he was ready to answer questions honestly at the forum tonight.

“I’ll be the first to admit I’ve not been as on time as I should have been,” Bullard said about his violations, adding that he pays the fines from his personal account, not the campaign account.

“I have been negligent. If that’s all they can find on me, that speaks volumes,” Bullard said.

“I’ve always been one of those folks who accepts my misgivings and uses them to learn lessons,” he added. “I just don’t think that my opponent has the same thought process.”

Many local Republicans just simply cannot wait to vote for Marco Rubio again in the Aug. 30 primary. So the Miami-Dade GOP is having a straw ballot vote next week  for that U.S. Senate seat.

Of course, the incumbent is the favorite. But all four Republican candidates — Rubio, Carlos Beruff, Ernie Rivera, and Dwight Mark Anthony Young — have been invited to speak or send surrogates on Aug. 11. Members of the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee will cast straw ballots for whoever they want to go to the general in November against the Democrat that wins, Patrick Murphy or Alan Grayson.

“A bunch of other RECs have done straw polls and the chairs of those counties have told me it has helped motivate members and was different and interesting,” said Miami GOP Chairman Nelson Diaz. “Some of our own members asked me about it, so I brought it up to the executive board, which unanimously requested it.”

He said the results would be made public.

Rubio is swamping Beruff, his closest challenger, in straw polls across the state. The Brevard County REC gave him 411 votes to 105 for Beruff. The developer did even worse in his own backyard of Sarasota, where only his campaign manager voted for him in a 50-1 showing.

Maybe the straw poll voters are looking at scientific polls, including a June Quinnipiac University survey that showed Rubio’s margin growing against both Murphy (50 to 37%) and Gayson (50 to 38%) while Beruff would lose (40 to 34%).

Is there somewhere Ladra can place a bet now?