Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Campaign at Home

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Campaign at Home

Ally Mutnick

Loc­al Demo­crats in Flor­ida’s 23rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict say Rep. Debbie Wasser­man Schultz has noth­ing to fear in her primary, des­pite her chal­lenger’s eye-pop­ping fun­drais­ing haul.

Nova South­east­ern Uni­versity law pro­fess­or Tim Can­ova, a first-time can­did­ate, shocked the party this week when he an­nounced that he had raised $557,000 in the first quarter for his up­start bid to deny the Demo­crat­ic Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee chair a re­nom­in­a­tion to Con­gress.

That will go a long way in get­ting his cam­paign off the ground, but Wasser­man Schultz sup­port­ers said many voters don’t know who Can­ova is, mak­ing it tough to com­pete with the con­gress­wo­man’s dec­ades-long ca­reer in South Flor­ida polit­ics.

“Who­ever is mount­ing that cam­paign is wast­ing their money,” said state Sen. Elean­or So­bel, whose dis­trict over­laps with much of the 23rd. “This is a strong Demo­crat­ic dis­trict, and Debbie is a house­hold name.”

Still, Wasser­man Schultz, who hasn’t faced a ser­i­ous and well-fun­ded primary chal­lenger, is not tak­ing the Aug. 30 primary lightly. A day after Can­ova’s fun­drais­ing an­nounce­ment and a week after rolling out an en­dorse­ment from Pres­id­ent Obama, Wasser­man Schultz re­vealed she raised $614,000 in the first quarter, her highest three-month take of the cycle by a mar­gin of more than $200,000.

In an in­ter­view with Na­tion­al Journ­al, Can­ova said about 90 per­cent of his dona­tions, which av­er­aged less than $20, came from out­side the state, likely from lib­er­als up­set with Wasser­man Schultz’s tu­mul­tu­ous ten­ure at the DNC.

“Why would people all over the coun­try be donat­ing to this cam­paign?” Can­ova said. “Well, she’s a na­tion­al lead­er, a na­tion­al fig­ure, and it’s an in­dict­ment of her failed lead­er­ship.”

Wasser­man Schultz came un­der fire this cycle dur­ing the con­tro­versy over Sen. Bernie Sanders’ DNC voter-data ac­cess and com­plaints about the tim­ing and sched­ule of the Demo­crat­ic de­bates. Crit­ics al­leged that the con­gress­wo­man, who was a co­chair of Hil­lary Clin­ton’s 2008 cam­paign, has a ven­detta against Sanders.

Can­ova said he has tapped in­to that frus­tra­tion be­cause dona­tions to his cam­paign surged after the DNC re­versed its ban on fed­er­al lob­by­ist dona­tions to fund the con­ven­tion, when the con­gress­wo­man co­sponsored and worked to pass a pay­day-lend­ing bill, and when the state Demo­crat­ic Party tried to block Can­ova’s ac­cess to its voter data—a policy it has since re­versed.

Per­haps most not­ably, Can­ova said fun­drais­ing surged by al­most $100,000 in the last four days of the quarter—after Obama’s en­dorse­ment.

The Wasser­man Schultz cam­paign de­clined to com­ment. But state Demo­crats and vet­er­an cam­paign strategists said Can­ova’s can­did­acy doesn’t pose a ser­i­ous threat be­cause the anti­es­tab­lish­ment sen­ti­ment fuel­ing his fun­drais­ing surge isn’t mirrored in the Broward County-based dis­trict.

After nearly 12 years in the state le­gis­lature and about a dozen in Con­gress, Wasser­man Schultz is me­tic­u­lous about her con­stitu­ent ser­vice, Flor­ida Demo­crats said. Voters value their long-stand­ing re­la­tion­ships with her and are aware her high-pro­file po­s­i­tion is bound to at­tract cri­ti­cism.

“I would sus­pect the mo­mentum for this is com­ing from places not in South Flor­ida,” Flor­ida-based Demo­crat­ic con­sult­ant Steve Schale said. “Folks can write mil­lions of dol­lars worth of checks. In the end, the de­cision on Debbie’s fu­ture ser­vice in Con­gress is go­ing to re­main up to the voters.”

In talk­ing to voters, Can­ova senses loc­al dis­con­tent. The con­gress­wo­man’s op­pos­i­tion to a state bal­lot ini­ti­at­ive on med­ic­al marijuana angered some Demo­crats, and her vote for the Ir­an nuc­le­ar deal left some smart­ing in the heav­ily Jew­ish dis­trict.

But even if Jew­ish groups dis­agreed with her vote, said Demo­crat­ic fun­draiser An­drew Wein­stein, a prom­in­ent South Flor­ida law­yer, they were im­pressed with the time and ef­fort she spent tak­ing in­put from the com­munity. She ar­ranged for Vice Pres­id­ent Joe Biden to come to the dis­trict to an­swer ques­tions from con­cerned con­stitu­ents.

Can­ova, who once ad­vised the Sanders cam­paign, aligns him­self with the self-de­scribed Demo­crat­ic so­cial­ist and es­chews all cor­por­ate or su­per PAC dona­tions. About 90 per­cent of his dona­tions came from the on­line fun­drais­ing tool Act­Blue, he said.

He de­fen­ded his na­tion­al donor base by point­ing to Wasser­man Schultz’s donor stats. Her cam­paign told the Sun Sen­tinel that 36 per­cent of her 6,909 dona­tions came from Flor­ida. Her av­er­age con­tri­bu­tion was $89. In con­trast, Can­ova said he re­ceived about 26,000 dona­tions and got more in­di­vidu­al dona­tions in Flor­ida than his op­pon­ent.

With his funds, Can­ova said he plans to bulk up his staff and mount a for­mid­able ground game and field op­er­a­tion. He also said he “wouldn’t be sur­prised” if he went on the air. He has won back­ing from some na­tion­al labor groups, the Com­mu­nic­a­tions Work­ers of Amer­ica and Na­tion­al Nurses United, but is lack­ing in loc­al en­dorse­ments.

But he isn’t wor­ried: “I nev­er said I was go­ing to win by get­ting en­dorse­ments.”

Loc­al Demo­crats and strategists said Wasser­man Schultz is still over­whelm­ingly pop­u­lar, spend­ing ample time in the dis­trict and giv­ing con­stitu­ents swift help with So­cial Se­cur­ity con­cerns. They also poin­ted to the March pres­id­en­tial primary, when Clin­ton car­ried the dis­trict with 68 per­cent of the vote.

Loc­al con­sult­ants said those stats show voters likely aren’t re­cept­ive to a can­did­ate with a Sanders-esque mes­sage.

“He may have money, but she has voters and she also has money,” Demo­crat­ic con­sult­ant Robin Rora­paugh said. “That’s an equa­tion that I think means she wins.”

Cla­ri­fic­a­tion: This story was up­dated to cla­ri­fy Wasser­man Schultz’s role in mov­ing the pay­day-lend­ing le­gis­la­tion for­ward.

https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/622169?mref=dashboard-lead-1