Debbie Wasserman Schultz fends off primary challenger

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., fended off a primary challenger and is likely to return to Congress, salvaging her political career after her ouster as leader of the Democratic Party.

CNN projected Wasserman Schultz’s win Tuesday over Tim Canova, a lawyer who had sought to use her political woes on the national stage against her in the primary. Canova had the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who last month conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton.

Sanders had for months accused Wasserman Schultz, as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, of favoring Clinton. Hacked emails released last month on the eve of the Democratic National Convention showed that she and her staff were antagonistic toward the Sanders campaign, leading to her resignation.

Canova capitalized on anger with Wasserman Schultz, and at one point was out-fund-raising her. Wasserman Schultz was well known in her south Florida district since her 2004 election, and pundits predicted longstanding goodwill among her constituents would carry her. Her district, encompassing Miami Beach, leans Democratic and she is likely to win in the Nov. 8 general election.

Wassrman Schultz is one of the best known Jewish Democrats in Congress, and Canova, who is not Jewish but who lived for a time in Israel, tried to use her vote for last year’s Iran nuclear deal – unpopular in the pro-Israel community – against her.

She countered by pointing to Canova’s calls for disarming the Middle East (he denied this included Israel) and his tough criticisms of Israeli settlement policy, which reflected the policies of Sanders, the first Jewish candidate to win major party nominating contests.

Also in Florida on Tuesday:

Rep. Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, modeled his campaign on Bernie Sanders’ bid for the White House. (Wikimedia Commons)

–Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., backed by the establishment, handily defeated Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., for the Democratic nomination for the Senate. Grayson, who is Jewish, was a firebrand on the party’s left and modeled his bid for the Senate on Sanders’ insurgent campaign. Grayson was afflicted in part by an ethicscomplaint that he continued to run a hedge fund while in office, and also of allegations of spousal abuse leveled by his ex-wife. The race was bitter, and Grayson said Tuesday night that he would not vote for Murphy in November. Grayson’s wife, Dena, failed in her bid to replace him in his central Florida district.

–Murphy will face Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who won the Republican primary on Tuesday. Rubio had run for the presidency but was defeated by Donald Trump. He had said he was quitting politics but Republican Party leaders, fearing a loss of the Senate seat on the coattails of Trump’s unpopularity, talked him into running. Rubio, an outspoken Iran deal opponent, had been a favorite of pro-Israel Republicans for a period during the primaries.

–Also handily fending off a rival on Tuesday was another south Florida congresswoman, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who is the chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives Middle East subcommittee. Ros-Lehtinen is one of the leading pro-Israel voices in the House, and has a good relationship with Wasserman Schultz. They joined to advocate for expanding benefits for aging Holocaust survivors.

Florida State Senator Dwight Bullard, attending the Democratic National Convention in July 2016. (Ben Sales)

–Dwight Bullard, a Democratic state senator who prompted a pro-Israel protest over the weekend because of his tour of the West Bank earlier this year sponsored by a pro-BDS group, handily defeated a challenger who had sought to make an issue of the controversy. Bullard, a Black Lives Matter activist whose district is in Miami-Dade County, told JTA recently he is “agnostic” about the boycott, divestment and sanction Israel movement. Andrew Korge, his rival, had told a local CBS affiliate that Bullard’s participation in the trip was “disturbing.”