Dan Bongino Loses Florida Congressional Race

Dan Bongino gave it another go but came up short in the Republican Primary in Florida’s Congressional District 19. The Florida polls closed at 7:00 pm and before 8:30 pm, Francis Rooney had been called the winner of #FL19. The final results (via The New York Times) are as follows:

Francis Rooney – 46,800 (52.7%)
Chauncey Goss – 26,520 (29.9%)
Dan Bongino – 15,434 (17.4%)

This was Bongino’s first Republican Primary lose. He won the Republican Primary for U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2012 and won the Primary for U.S. Congress in Maryland’s 6th District in 2014.

Here are the numbers for his 2012 Primary race:

United States Senate Election in Maryland, 2012 Republican Primary
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Daniel Bongino	66,561	33.8
	Republican	Richard J. Douglas	55,907	28.4
	Republican	Joseph Alexander	17,567	8.9
	Republican	Bro Broadus	10,503	5.3
	Republican	Rick Hoover	10,241	5.2
	Republican	John B. Kimble	10,088	5.1
	Republican	David Jones	8,002	4.1
	Republican	Corrogan R. Vaughn	7,869	4.0
	Republican	William Thomas Capps, Jr.	6,768	3.4
	Republican	Brian Vaeth	3,602	1.8
Total votes			204,268	100

Here are the numbers for the 2014 Primary race:

2014 Maryland’s 6th Congressional District Republican Primary
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Dan Bongino	23,933	83.5
	Republican	Harold W. Painter, Jr.	4,718	16.5
Total votes			28,651	100

Bongino had never faced a Primary where a candidate was as well funded as Rooney (who gave his campaign an estimate $3.9 million). That is some serious cash for a congressional race. I would think it would be difficult for anyone to overcome that kind of self funding.

The phone conversation with the Politico reporter during the early voting in Florida did not help Bongino. It was widely reported and I am sure that had some affect on the final voting numbers in this election.

Bongino and his team must have known this was a real possibility yesterday. Bongino is usually very active on Twitter but yesterday there was not much coming from his account. He had two tweets in the morning:

At 9:30am

At 10:29am:

That last one is never a good sign from a candidate. Generally when those type of tweets come from a candidate or campaign account, they know it is not going to be a good day.

The final tweet came at 9:14pm. The race had been called for Rooney by then and what I can only assume is out of total frustration, this was sent out…

Of all of the things that could have been sent out to his followers…we (or they, since I am blocked from his Twitter account) got that to end the evening. My hope is that something more thankful or appreciative to the over 15,000 district voters (and thousands of other supporters and followers) comes from him today via social media. Maybe it will…we will see. I know he thanked his followers at 10:29am, but it would have been nice to see him congratulate his opponent and thank his followers one last time at the end of the evening. That is just my own personal opinion. On a lighter note…I have to say that some of the comments of Bongino using the hashtag for “pound” on Twitter were hilarious.

What is next for Dan Bongino? I have no clue. He is in Florida and I am in Maryland and don’t keep up with his day to day activities. I am sure he will continue to make appearances on Fox, CNN and other stations when they need an ex Secret Service agent or security expert. I would bet he will continues his appearances on Sean Hannity (radio) and WBAL (radio). He has his podcast (of which I will listen to the next episode – betting it will be a classic). I guess the question is will Bongino run for office again in 2018 (or further out at some point). If I were to guess, I would think he may have one more fight in him. He may not feel like it today, but he still has a significant following and it would not surprise me to see him get into another race down the road.

Have a great Wednesday (or now better known as…HUMP DAY)!!!!