The Daily Background

Yesterday I asked if disgraced Republican Rep Mark Foley’s House seat could be an unexpected pickup for Dems this year. This is the third House race where Republicans have been forced to run a replacement candidate by the way.

A picture of what’s going to happen regarding the election is becoming more clear. According to Florida state election law, Foley’s name will stay on the ballot, and any votes for him will count for the new Republican candidate, to be chosen on Monday (most likely) by Florida Republicans.

Since Foley’s votes will go to his Republican replacement, some suggest the campaign slogan for Foley’s replacement “Vote for the guy who hit on 16 year old pages so his party can pick me to represent you in Congress.”

In addition, there will be no special election to replace Foley until election day, because it’s too close to the general election in November. The constituents of Florida’s 16th district will go without representation until next January when their new elected Rep is sworn in. Until then, they will have a provisional office composed of a skeleton staff which can’t really do anything for them.

Another thing. Democrat Tim Mahoney, who was considered a long shot for the race is now the only candidate on the ballot besides Foley (whose votes will count for whoever the new Republican candidate is). Foley was waaaaay ahead of Mahoney in terms of fundraising and cash-on-hand (the latter was Mahoney’s $343,755 vs Foley’s $2,787,281).

BUT– since Foley can’t just dump almost three million bucks into the campaign of whoever the new Republican is, Mahoney is now three hundred thousand dollars ahead in the money race. Which is nuts, but awesome for him. There’s only 39 days until the election.

Filed under: oh six midterm Elections, Z-TDB Blog