Republican incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart barely held on to his seat in Congress Tuesday after a close race against Democrat Joe Garcia, taking just over 52 percent of the ballots and winning 118,096 votes to 107,100
"We knew this would be a tough election, we were out spent, but not out worked," Diaz-Balart told supporters at a victory party Tuesday night in Kendall.
Diaz-Balart faced his toughest challenge ever from Garcia. The candidates, both Cuban-American, spent more than a million dollars bashing one another in television ads, each charging the other with corruption.
Diaz-Balart, 47, who is completing his third term, believed he will be re-elected based on his record and effectiveness.
Garcia, 44, the former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, hoped to rewrite the rules on traditional Cuban voting habits, yet rarely mentioned Cuba at his public appearances.
''I'm running for the 25th Congressional District in South Florida, where people are concerned about their jobs, the economy and taxes,'' Garcia said.
The campaigns traded insults through Election Day.
The National Republican Congressional Committee first went after Democratic Raul Martinez, who is running against Diaz-Balart's brother Lincoln in District 21, but then turned its sights on Garcia with a television ad attempting to link him to Barack Obama that said, "Garcia likes the idea of redistribution of wealth."
Diaz-Balart's name and experience gave him an edge in the race.
He started his career as an aid to the former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez in 1985. He was first elected for the Florida House in 1988 for an empty seat left by his older brother, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who moved to the Florida Senate. In 1992, he took his brother's seat in the Senate when Lincoln Diaz-Balart was elected to U.S. Congress. He went back to the Florida House after his term-limited out of the Senate.
District 25 was created by Diaz-Balart when he chaired the committee of redrawing congressional district lines in the state House. He won the seat in 2002 and has not had a tight race since.
Joe Garcia was aiming for a second chance for public office.
Garcia ran unsuccessfully for Miami-Dade County Commission in 1993, in another close race. He became the first Hispanic chairman of the Florida Public Service Commission and served from 1994-2000. From 2000-2004, he was the executive director of CANF and later was the chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, 2006-2007.
"My opponent was right there with the president," Garcia said. "Then when it got hot in the kitchen, he walked away, cleaned his hands of it, and talked about what he would have done, not what he did do."
Leilani Laureano
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