A retired Navy helicopter pilot backed by the Democratic establishment cruised to victory in the Florida primaries on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Bale Dalton defeated ex-congressman Alan Grayson and progressive Marialana Kinter, another Navy veteran<\/a>, for the Democratic nomination to run in the Sunshine State’s 7th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla.<\/p>\n What was once expected to be a safe GOP seat is now being viewed as a possible pickup opportunity for Democrats in November as scandals continue to pile up for Mills.<\/p>\n WATCH: CORY MILLS BLASTS DOJ PROBE AS \u2018POLITICAL OP’ AHEAD OF FLORIDA PRIMARY<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The nonpartisan Cook Political Report downgraded Republicans’ chances<\/a> of keeping the district from a “safe” to “likely” win for the GOP. It’s rated R+5, meaning Democrats could have a shot with the right candidate.<\/p>\n Dalton is already on the House Democratic campaign arm’s “Red to Blue” list, meaning left-wing leaders are expected to pour money and other resources into the race.<\/p>\n He was also endorsed by progressive veterans group VoteVets, the moderate-left Blue Dog Coalition, as well as Reps. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., and Lois Frankel, D-Fla.<\/p>\n Mills, who served in the Army<\/a>, has been bogged down by controversies in recent years that have prompted two of his fellow Florida Republicans<\/a> \u2014 Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., and Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla. \u2014 to call for him to drop out of the race.<\/p>\n REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER WELCOMES HOUSE ETHICS PROBE INTO SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST HIM<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n They backed challenger Ryan Elijah, a former longtime Orlando news anchor.<\/p>\n Mills is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and allegedly by the Department of Justice (DOJ), though he denied the latter probe’s existence. Mills has also denied all wrongdoing.<\/p>\n He went into his bid for a third term endorsed by President Donald Trump<\/a>, though the commander-in-chief has not spoken on the allegations of sexual harassment and financial impropriety that have dogged the sitting Republican incumbent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A retired Navy helicopter pilot backed by the Democratic establishment cruised to victory in the Florida primaries on Tuesday night. Bale Dalton defeated ex-congressman Alan Grayson and progressive Marialana Kinter, another Navy veteran, for the Democratic nomination to run in the Sunshine State’s 7th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}