{"id":292143,"date":"2026-06-01T19:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/292143\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:49:10","slug":"afscme-florida-announces-fleet-of-mostly-miami-focused-endorsements-ahead-of-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/292143\/","title":{"rendered":"AFSCME Florida announces fleet of mostly Miami-focused endorsements ahead of Midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sunshine State chapter<\/a> of the country\u2019s largest trade union for public-sector employees just released nine endorsements, mostly Miami-Dade County-facing, ahead of qualifying for the 2026 Midterms.<\/p>\n

This week, AFSCME<\/a> Florida announced it is formally backing former state Senator and Assistant U.S. Secretary of Labor Jos\u00e9 Javier Rodr\u00edguez, who is running<\/a> for Attorney General, and recently elected<\/a> Democratic Sen. Brian Nathan in Senate District 14.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez, a lawyer, represented part of Miami-Dade while serving in the Senate. He narrowly lost a Senate re-election bid in 2020, after what was revealed to be a \u201cghost candidate<\/a>\u201d scheme in which a similarly named independent candidate was paid to run and siphon away votes meant for Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n

Nathan, an electrician by trade, serves part of Hillsborough County in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Other AFSCME Florida nods, all in Miami-Dade, went to County Commission Chair Anthony Rodriguez and incumbent County Commissioners Marleine Bastien, Juan Carlos \u201cJ.C.\u201d Bermudez, Danielle Cohen Higgins, Vicki Lopez, Natalie Milian Orbis and Micky Steinberg.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anthony Rodriguez, Bastien, Bermudez, Cohen Higgins and Steinberg are running for re-election in technically nonpartisan contests.<\/p>\n

Lopez and Milian Orbis are running to keep the seats they gained by<\/a> appointment<\/a> last year. All are seeking a final four-year term on the 13-member panel, after which they\u2019d have to leave office due to term limits.<\/p>\n

Bastien faces three challengers, according to Miami-Dade election records<\/a> \u2014 Ernst Jean, Elizabeth Jeanty and Miguel \u201cSkip\u201d Quintero \u2014 while Cohen Higgins and Lopez have one opponent each: Martha \u201cVega\u201d Hero and Joe Sanchez, respectively.<\/p>\n

Anthony Rodriguez, Milian Orbis and Steinberg are currently unopposed.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Javier Rodr\u00edguez is competing in a Democratic Primary for the Attorney General\u2019s race, where Republican appointee James Uthmeier is defending. To face each other, Rodr\u00edguez and Uthmeier must get past Primary foes Jim Lewis and Steven Leskovich.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The deadline<\/a> to qualify for County Commission races is June 9.<\/p>\n

Qualifying for state-level races closes June 12.<\/p>\n

The Primary is Aug. 18, followed by the General Election on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sunshine State chapter of the country\u2019s largest trade union for public-sector employees just released nine endorsements, mostly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25162,27211,74510,8184,28,30,29,28931,69896,94219,1064,24953,373,24954,123384,123385,11674],"class_list":["post-292143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-anthony-rodriguez","tag-brian-nathan","tag-danielle-cohen-higgins","tag-election-2026","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-j-c-bermudez","tag-jose-javier-rodriguez","tag-marleine-bastien","tag-miami-dade","tag-miami-dade-commission","tag-miami-dade-county","tag-miami-dade-county-commission","tag-micky-steinberg","tag-natlie-milian-orbis","tag-vicki-lopez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}