Miami-Dade’s Daniella Levine Cava raises $1 mil for runoff in 10 days

Miami-Dade’s Daniella Levine Cava raises $1 mil for runoff in 10 days
  • Sumo

Esteban Bovo behind with $65K since Election Day

Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo may have headed into the mayoral runoff with a 2,000-vote edge over Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava. But Levine Cava is killing him in fundraising since.

DLC collected more than $1 million between her campaign account and her political action committee, Our Democracy, in 10 days between the primary and Aug. 28. Bovo got just under $65,000 in the same amount of time between his campaign account and his PAC, A Better Miami-Dade.

Half of DLC’s cool mil comes from one source: billionaire S. Donald Sussman, a hedge fund investor and philanthropist who gave her PAC $500K on Aug. 28. There’s more where that came from, however. The liberal Democrat has given millions to Democrat candidates, including more than $22 mil to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Levine Cava also got $100,000 from her mother Lois Levine in Brooklyn — who already gave more than $175,000 in the first round — and $10,000 from former Pinecrest Mayor Evelyn Greer and her husband Bruce Greer, giving her a total for 10 days of $786,750, her best take ever.

Read related: Esteban Bovo leads mayoral race, goes to runoff vs Daniella Levine Cava

Her campaign account collected another $221,288 from Aug. 18 through the 28th, which is the last day of recorded transaction on the latest campaign finance reports filed last week. It includes $25,000 from the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee, which has also committed a six figure TV buy, and $12,500 from the Florida Democratic Party.

While most of the contributions here are for amounts smaller than $100, there are several notable bundles, like:

  • $50,000 from 50 different companies with the same address, all owned by Wynwood’s Godfather Moishe Mana.
  • $13,000 from real estate developer Sergio Rok.
  • $10,000 from property investors and booze brothers Wayne Chaplin and Steven Becker, CEO and Executive VP of Souther Glazer’s Wine & Spirits.
  • $5,000 from Evelyn and Bruce Greer, bringing their total investment to $15K
  • $5,000 from real estate developer Jeffrey Berkowitz

It also includes $1,000 maximum gifts from Congresswoman Donna Shalala former Deputy Mayor Russell Benford, now a lobbyist at Royal Caribbean.

Read related: Miami-Dade Dems produce first TV ad for Daniella Levine Cava for mayor

Bovo has fewer bundles, of course, because he collected fewer contributions. But the larger investments constitute about 50% of his August pull. That translates to $19,000 from four sources:

  • $6,000 from Hialeah developer Santiago Alvarez, a longtime Cuban activist who was accused of financing an attempted assassination of Fidel Castro in Panama as well as several bombings of Havana tourist spots in 2001 and was sentenced to four years in prison for illegal weapons charges — a cache of weapons he was going to send to Cuba — in 2006.
  • $5,000 from former State Rep and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, from his property investment companies
  • $5,000 from former State Rep. turned lobbyist Manuel Prieguez
  • $3,000 from lobbyist Eric Zichella

His PAC got only $27,500 in three contributions: $5,000 from Wellpath, a Tennessee healthcare company, $2,500 from New Leadership Network PC — which also gave the same amount to DLC’s PAC, to cover both bases — and $25K from Reform Government, a Tampa-based PAC affiliated with Lopez-Cantera.

So, unless he has some dark money stashed away in a non-profit we don’t know about, Bovo is terribly underfunded in comparison with DLC.

14 Responses to "Miami-Dade’s Daniella Levine Cava raises $1 mil for runoff in 10 days"

  1. So the SPCC is going to be the new Tammany Hall?

    Lots of favors are going to be owed…

    I expected more from the “grassroots” candidate…

  2. You forgot to mention how the Greers are developers, and their ties to local corruption to increase their profits…

    Follow the money…

    #OurCounty is for sale.

    Sad, but that’s life in the big city. Her public persona and long time personal branding do not seem to match who she really is.

    At least Bovo seems authentic about being a politician & isn’t pretending to be someone else to get votes. In fact, it’s the opposite. He acts after if he doesn’t need votes to win.

  3. Maybe you liberal bleeding hearts are OK with what the Che Guevara/Karl Marx quoting Mayor De Blassio of New York City has implemented in his city and you would like to see it done in this county by Cava. How about all restaurants closed until June of next year? That’s what De Blassio has done. If that does not break the economy of a city, then what? Maybe you prefer to have your food thrown at you as you eat a meal at your favorite restaurant simply because some freak who has spent his life under a rock feels he has not been given his free share.
    I’m old enough to remember what happened in Cleveland and Detroit in the 1960s after the riots. Those cities have yet to recover. Seattle and Portland are headed that way as well. I will do my best with my vote from preventing that from happening here.

    https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/david-asman-new-york-mayor-city-havana-hudson

  4. This women is a communist. She wants to trun our beautiful City into another Portland and Seattle. Let her live in Cuba and Venezuela for a few years and then we will see her tone after. She has repeatedly wanted to defund the police. Think about it, the people who come to our help. Our last resort for defense, she wants to handcuff. She is insane just like the rest of the communist left. People, look at China, people and Doctors suddenly disappear for voicing their concerns. That’s communism. they control everything. They also want people to continue to depend on the govt cause that how they think they can get your vote. they dont want you to have a life free of dependence on the govt. Vote Bovo for mayor.

  5. Frank Labrador, what else but a communist do you call a candidate who pushed to institute an Independent Review Panel to handcuff police officers from protecting life and property? A candidate who seeks to defund our police and thus allow wild mobs to roam our streets defacing our public buildings and statues? A candidate who openly states on her platform that she wants to stop police foot chases to prevent them from“persecuting our people”? A candidate who insists in taxing business and property owners through the nose to compliment a segment of society that wants to be handed all sorts of benefits while sitting at home? If that is not communism then give us your description of it because you seem to be living in la-la land.

  6. Does not matter whether Daniella Levine-Cava raises $1 million or $100 million dollars. She is an extreme Liberal Democrat who showed here true color by deciding to defund the Police at the last County Budget Meeting. This makes her an extremest, socialist, borderline communist. Voters are seeing right through this. BOVO is the next Mayor of Miami-Dade County!

  7. Miami Dade needs new blood to take on all its problems, not the same old status quo politicians playing the same game getting the county nowhere fast.

  8. What an utterly ignorant statement to make. Why not attack her on her record and campaign platform rather than labeling her a communist. So lazy.

  9. I am pleased to see Daniella Levine Cava doing so well in her fundraising efforts. To those who believe that a good, honest and decent candidate can be bought, I am sorry for your jaundiced view of all humankind. For the record, Levine Cava is an American who wishes to honorably serve the people of Miami-Dade County. She is not a Communist.

  10. Another million Dollar ! ” This Lay Away “Politician Will have to give Lots of Favors To ALL this Donors from The County Perks ? When will The “CORRUPTION” Stop ?

  11. Miami-Dade County elected officials need to start reducing the number of County employees or taxes and fees are going way up!

  12. What does S. Donald Sussman expect in return for his generous contribution of $500k? Looks like every liberal flake in this county is putting their monies on communist Cava for the sake of a “better tomorrow.”
    Those same contributors will repent on their contributions the day she wins and this county becomes another Portland. When the leftist mob supported by Cava overrun their favorite restaurant, march down their suburb street chanting obscenities and shining lights into their Gables mansions with no police in sight, they will wish they would have voted for Bovo.
    Interesting thing about these communists, they tax working people and steal all they can from them to feed, house, clothe and teach their leftist dogma to opportunists who lack the moral conviction to work for a living.

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