Senate special election on in Miami-Dade

TALLAHASSEE — A heated contest for an open state Senate seat in Miami just got hotter.

With the power out in large parts of Miami-Dade County, Florida Democrats have asked Gov. Rick Scott to postpone the Sept. 26 special election in Senate District 40.

Early voting in the runoff between Democrat Annette Taddeo and Republican former state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz begins Saturday.

Scott called for the special election after former state Sen. Frank Artiles resigned earlier this year after he made a racially tinged outburst at a private club near the Capitol.

The southern portions of Miami-Dade County, including the Senate district, “are among the hardest hit parts of our state with a great percentage of our homes without power,” Florida Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Bittel wrote to Scott on Wednesday.

He asked the governor to delay the election for two weeks.

“Amidst this backdrop of personal and property loss, opening early voting polls for the Senate District 40 special elections would be inappropriate. Our community is focused on rebuilding and recovery, not Bittel wrote.

So far, “there are no changes” for the Sept. 26 election, and early voting is still on at three public libraries, beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday, said Suzy Trutie, a deputy supervisor of elections for the county.

“All three early voting sites have power,” she said in an email Thursday.

J.C. Planas, an attorney representing Diaz’s campaign, scoffed at the idea of postponing the election.

Planas, whose own home was without electricity this week, said he’s been in contact with elections officials and visited the voting,” early voting sites. His conclusion is that “everything is ready to roll.”

Switching the election dates “would cause chaos,” he said.

Planas pointed out that Florida Power & Light has pledged to have electricity restored to the region by Sunday.

“If FPL doesn’t have power up by Sunday, then maybe we can have this discussion,” he said.

“If there’s not power Sunday, there’s going to be mobs of angry people in the street and the election is going to be the last thing on people’s minds. We will have other issues,” the attorney added.

In the July 25 primary, Diaz defeated two opponents, former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla and attorney Lorenzo Palomares.

The testy rivalry between Diaz and Diaz de la Portilla — who released a pair of polls early on boasting about his broad name identification — suggested the race could be close, but Diaz won easily.

Taddeo bested former Rep. Ana Rivas Logan in a contest that featured far less publicity but was nevertheless fiery.

Taddeo raised nearly $60,000, more than five times as much as Rivas Logan.