By Dale M. King
BOCA RATON – It wasn’t just a wave that swept Republicans back to political prominence in Tuesday’s general election. It was a tsunami.
Nationally, and in both Florida and Palm Beach County, few challenged Democrats got back into office.
In South County, only one candidate – U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, the Democratic incumbent in District 19, won his seat back by a 2-1 margin over Joe Budd.
But in the adjacent District 22, two-term Democratic incumbent Ron Klein, a longtime politician who served in both the Florida House and Senate before going to Washington, lost to retired Lt. Col. Allen West, who was beaten by Klein in the 2008 election.
Catching national headlines was the stunning victory for U.S. Senate of Marco Rubio, who has been battling two challengers – Democrat Kendrick Meek and Gov. Charlie Crist. After losing the Republican primary, Crist switch to Independent status, but lately had been currying favor from Democrats. Even notable Democrats like Bill Clinton and Burt Aaronson had urged Meek to drop out of the race, but he didn’t.
Rubio got about 50 percent of the total vote.
A race that wasn’t decided until Wednesday morning was that of governor Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Alex Sink had been just a few thousand votes apart, and it appeared the election might go to challenge when Sink conceded defeat about 10 a.m. Wednesday.
In other races locally, Democrat Irving “Irv” Slosberg won back his House District 90 seat with a 2-1 victory over Republican Alison Rampersad. He had served from 2000 to 2006 when he was term-limited out of office.
Marco Rubio
In District 87, Republican Bill Hager won the seat formerly held by Republican Adam Hasner, who could not run again due to term limits. Hasner had endorsed Hager in his race against Democrat Hava Holzhauer.
Republican Ellyn Bogdanoff handily won the State Senate 25 seat, defeating Democrat Kelly Skidmore by a 57 to 37 percent margin. Former Senator from 25 Jeff Atwater, a Republican, went on to win the office of chief financial office that Sink yielded to run for governor. Republicans Adam Putnam won the seat of commissioner of agriculture and Pam Bondi is the state’s new attorney general.
Republican George Moraitis won Bogdanoff’s former House District 91 seat, defeating Barbra Anne Stern.