Dem
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GOP
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In a sneaky move, Rep Bill Posey (R-FL) announced Friday that he will not run for reelection. Why is this sneaky? After all, 20 other Republicans are also retiring. Well, Posey's chosen successor, former state Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R), just filed to run a few days ago. That in itself is unusual since eight-term Republican representatives in red districts don't normally draw opponents unless there are some ideological issues at play, which is not true here.
What is sneaky here is that the filing deadline has just passed. Normally, when a Republican retires in an R+11 district, every Republican state senator and representative within 20 miles of the district pricks up his or her ears and gets ready to run. But because Posey said he would run for reelection and then announced "nope" just after the filing deadline had passed, none of the other local legislators or mayors got a chance to enter. Could it be that Haridopolos has one of those new AI-powered crystal balls with a USB-C cable he could plug into his computer to get predictions daily, and one of them said: "Congress is in your future"? Who knows? In any event, Posey has already endorsed Haridopolos. What a turn of good luck for him! Two other Republicans also filed, just in case the 76-year-old Posey decided to call it quits, but Haridopolos is clearly the favorite now that Posey has endorsed him. Open and transparent politics at its finest. (V)