Officials are calling for an investigation into so-called “ghost candidates” in Florida.
These mysterious candidates appear to run for office solely to take votes away from a competitor and make it easier for a third candidate to win.
It was the closest of races. Incumbent Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez lost his Florida State Senate seat by just 32 votes.
The Republican challenger who won was Ileana Garcia, a founder of Latinas for Trump.
But there was a third candidate in this race, playing the role of spoiler: Alex Rodriguez, who shared the same last name as the Democrat in the race and promoted himself as a liberal. Alex Rodriguez got more than 6,000 votes.
Jose Javier Rodriguez said the straw candidate cost him his seat by pulling away Democrat votes.
“I didn’t even know what he looked like, until after the race, and investigative reporters tracked him down,” he said.
In State Senate District 9, Democrat Patricia Sigman lost to a Republican by just 2 percent of the vote. No one ever saw the supposedly liberal, third candidate.
“She had no website. She never participated in any of the debates or forums, never showed up anywhere. She wasn’t even registered to vote until she filed,” Sigman said.
In these races and one other, ghost candidates in Florida were supported by mysterious political action committees that sent out hundreds of thousands of dollars in mostly identical advertising mailers, making those candidates seem liberal.
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