Bullard Bulldozes Korge, Wins Senate District 40 Seat
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Sen. Dwight Bullard has bulldozed his primary competition Tuesday, winning the District 40 Senate battle.
Bullard, a Democrat, beat out Ana Rivas Logan, Andrew Korge and Missalys Perez.
Bullard is the heir to a Miami-Dade County legislative legacy forged by his mother, Larcenia.
He was elected to the Senate in 2012, took over the seat formerly held by his mother, who served two decades in the Legislature.
Prior to his election to the Senate, the younger Bullard served in the House in the same seat once held by both his mother and his father.
His primary opponent, Korge, doesn't live in the district but says he grew up in it. Korge's father, Chris Korge, is a prominent Democratic fundraiser who is close to presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Rivas Logan, a Republican-turned-Democrat who previously served in the House, qualified to run for the seat but had dropped out.
Korge and supporters had tried focusing on a trip Bullard took to the Middle East with members of the Dream Defenders, a group affiliated with the Black Lives Matter organization.
Bullard's tour guide was affiliated with the anti-Israel BDS movement, a pro-Palestinian group linked with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, something Bullard said he was unaware of until news reports raised questions after he returned from the May trip.
"It's just disturbing," Korge said in an interview outside the West Miami Dade Regional Library recently. "This raises a lot of questions. It's concerning that an American elected official should be meeting with members of a terrorist organization."
Bullard said he is "agnostic" about Palestinians and Israel, a hot-button issue in a district with many Jewish voters.
"I am not supporting a terrorist organization nor have I ever nor am I leaning to it," Bullard said in a telephone interview. "The reason I went was because I had never been to the region and had been hearing all kinds of issues and concerns related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as to the conditions under which the Palestinians were living."
On the Republican side, State Rep. Frank Artiles is running unopposed in the GOP primary and will face off against the Democratic winner in the general election.
