Gimenez, Mucarsel-Powell spend millions on TV attacks
WASHINGTON
In Florida’s most competitive congressional race, the allegations are coming fast and they’re personal. Corrupt. Dangerous. Dead wrong for Miami.
But in ads posted by groups supporting Carlos Gimenez and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the multimillion-dollar fight for Florida’s 26th Congressional District, some of the fiercest attacks are not focused on the candidates themselves, or their records, but on their families.
Gimenez, the Republican mayor of MiamiDade County, is going after Mucarsel-Powell’s husband for his work with a publicly traded company that took — but then returned — federal Paycheck Protection Program money meant for small businesses at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and for his previous work for two Miami businessmen accused of money laundering by the Justice Department.
Mucarsel-Powell, the Democratic incumbent, has aimed at Gimenez’s sons, attacking one of them for his red light camera lobbying work and another for his previous job working at the company that built the pedestrian bridge at Florida International University that collapsed in 2018, killing six people.
And while both candidates say they want to talk about policy issues like the ongoing Obamacare lawsuit by Republicans that threatens to tank a program providing health insurance to about 100,000 people in the district and the composition of the Supreme Court, ads run by groups aligned with Mucarsel-Powell and Gimenez tell a different story. The gloves are off — and they were never really