Beruff rolled the dice to see whether the anti-establishment mood powering Donald Trump’s presidential campaign could send him to Washington as well.
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On the Democrat side, Murphy won handily in Polk with 56 percent of the vote, 15,339, while Grayson trailed with 24 percent, or 6,576.
One of those is now held by U.S. Rep. David Jolly, a Republican who was expected to win Tuesday, but who would then have to beat former Gov. Charlie Crist, who used to be a Republican but is now a Democrat. The seat is now held by Rep. Gwen Graham (D-FL), the daughter of former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham, who announced she was leaving Congress earlier this year.
Marco Rubio has consistently led the race since rejoining it, averaging a five-point lead in the polls on Murphy.
McCain, Rubio, and Wasserman Schultz all faced high-profile, politically charged races this primary season.
McCain, who turned 80 on Monday and called this the “race of his life”, was up by 17 points at midnight, two hours after polls closed, with 35 percent of precincts reporting.
In another Florida House primary, the incumbent Democratic congresswoman Corrine Brown lost the party nomination following an indictment on alleged fraud charges.
Both men may have challenges winning over their former competitors though. However, polls have also shown that many Florida voters have not yet formed an opinion of Murphy, giving the challenger room to close the race in the remaining nine weeks of the campaign.
Many of those races have been marked by the familiar national dynamic pitting the party establishment vs. insurgents.
Rubio, 45, was a rising Republican star but his presidential bid fizzled in March when Trump, a brash billionaire real estate mogul, thrashed him in the Florida primary. But for now, it seems Murphy won’t be on board.
Her resignation announcement came just a day after news emerged that she had been stripped of her speaking and presiding privileges at the Philadelphia convention following the publication through WikiLeaks of more than 19,000 emails that depicted the Democratic Party as trying to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ White House run.
And in the Orlando-area 9th District, Dena Grayson – wife of the incumbent – is battling her husband’s former chief of staff, Susannah Randolph, and state Sen.
“He is very important in the Senate because if we lose the Senate, the country is going to be controlled by Supreme Court justices that are going to issue laws of their own for a generation”, said Cabrera. He’s not well known in the state, and the 33-year-old recently had to weather questions about his resume and whether he embellished it. Can Murphy overcome his disadvantages and unseat Rubio?
The primary also sets the field for a race that could determine whether Democrats regain control of the U.S. Senate. She ran uncontested in the primary, and Democrats are excited about her candidacy.
Ms. Ward had been mainly ignored by Mr. McCain, but she got national attention by saying in recent interviews that Mr. McCain would be unable to complete another six-year term because of his age.
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“He’s not a war hero”.
