United States Senate election in Florida, 2004
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In the 2004 Senate campaign, Castor faced two Democratic candidates, Miami mayor Alex Penelas and Hollywood congressman Peter Deutsch, in the Democratic primary election.
[edit] Primary election
The election to determine which two candidates would be allowed to run for Bob Graham's soon-to-be vacant U.S. Senate seat was held on August 31, 2004.
The winners of the respective races are colored in lime.
Democratic Party Vote
6,835 out of 6,836 precincts are reporting. That is 99% of the total vote count in the state.
| Candidate | Number of votes | Percentage of votes |
|---|---|---|
| Betty Castor | 667,285 | 58% |
| Peter Deutsch | 324,131 | 28% |
| Alex Penelas | 115,151 | 10% |
| Bernard Klein | 47,078 | 4% |
Republican Party Vote
6,834 out of 6,836 precincts are reporting. That is 99% of the total vote count in the state.
| Candidate | Number of votes | Percentage of votes |
|---|---|---|
| Mel Martinez | 520,783 | 45% |
| Bill McCollum | 359,291 | 31% |
| Doug Gallagher | 157,869 | 14% |
| Johnnie Byrd | 68,732 | 6% |
| Karen Saull | 20,623 | 2% |
| Sonya March | 17,753 | 2% |
| Larry Klayman | 16,939 | 1% |
| William Kogut | 3,691 | 0% |
Sources:
[edit] General election
Until the spring of 2004, Castor's fundraising was much slower than her Democratic and Republican rivals. In the spring, the campaign hired fundraising staff from the defunct presidential campaigns of Howard Dean and Bob Graham, and subsequently posted much higher fundraising numbers over the summer. Online grassroots techniques devised for the Dean campaign (Castor became a Dean Dozen candidate in August) were one contributing factor: another was the support of EMILY's List, which named Castor as its highest-rated candidate for the 2004 election cycle, even when her support for banning intact dilation and extraction (D&X) abortions was not in line with the EMILY's List support for woman's issues. The latter was a source of criticism during the August primary heat - a complaint was filed by a Deutsch supporter with the Federal Election Commission accusing inappropriate coordination with EMILY's List. The complaint was dismissed by the Federal Election Commission in 2005.
Castor's handling of Sami Al-Arian became another source of criticism during the campaign. In June, The American Democracy Project, a 527 group founded by Bernie Friedman, began attacking Castor's handling of the incident, alleging that she had sufficient evidence to fire Al-Arian in the mid-1990s. Castor responded by stating that she never had sufficient evidence to fire Al-Arian, who was a tenured professor at the time. On June 29, Senator Graham, who had previously remained outside of the Al-Arian controversy, released a statement that "Betty Castor acted appropriately as President of the University of South Florida to deal with Sami Al-Arian": later, Graham and Senator Bill Nelson brokered an agreement between the Democratic candidates to refrain from negative campaigning against each other, although this agreement appeared to break down in the final weeks of the race, when Deutsch launched attack ads on television.
Despite these controversies, Castor won the Democratic nomination on August 31. She was defeated, however, by Republican candidate Mel Martinez in a close race on November 2, 2004. The overwhelming support for Martinez among Latinos effectively counterbalanced Castor's relatively high popularity among swing voters throughout the state.
There was some speculation that Castor would run for Governor of Florida in 2006 to replace Jeb Bush, who was ineligible for re-election due to term limits, but she announced in 2005 that she would not be a candidate.
