When Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen announced that she was retiring, her Florida district, the 27th seemed like a lost cause and a done deal.
It was going to go Democrat.
The Democrats were so confident that they were going to get it that their candidate, Donna Shalala, is a hoary, unpleasant Clinton leftover. Her credentials were working for the Clintons in and out of government, in Bill’s administration and the Clinton Foundation.
The 27th is majority Hispanic.
Shalala is the daughter of Arab Lebanese immigrants. The Republicans ran a Hispanic candidate. And they’re winning.
It’s not a done deal.
The Clintons are going to throw everything they can into the tank for Shalala. She is one of their few remaining powerful loyalists and if Hillary Clinton can’t drag her over the line in a district that she handily won, it’ll be her worst political shellacking since 2016.
And one more nail in the Clinton political coffin.
So expect the Clintons to go all in. But the matchup between Maria Salazar and Donna Shalala contains exactly the ingredients of the sort of upsets they were banking on.
Just not in their favor.
The Republicans have the younger, more ethnic, and more charismatic candidate. While the Dems are stuck with more Clinton leftovers from last week’s supper.
There are lessons to learn here.
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