Senate race shakes up

While your eyes were on the presidential primary, Florida's U.S. Senate race was undergoing a shakeup behind the scenes.

Two dark horse Republican candidates, Adam Hasner and Craig Miller, left the race, appearing to clear the field for a GOP primary battle between Connie Mack IV and George LeMieux.

Mack, meanwhile, appeared to get the backing of Mitt Romney in the primary after taking the unusual and politically risky step of campaigning for Romney — and against Newt Gingrich — in the presidential primary.

That risk appears to have paid off big time.

"It was a rash political step but has paid huge dividends," said University of South Florida political scientist Darryl Paulson.

Mack's winning gamble is likely to help him in the area where he most needs help: fundraising.

As if to underscore the point, Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, who will face the GOP primary winner in November, turned in another crushing fundraising report, showing he raised $1.3 million in the last three months of 2011. He has $8.4 million in his campaign account, a huge advantage over both Mack, with less than $1 million in the bank, and LeMieux, with $1.1 million, heading into the election year.

Miller and Hasner left the race to run for Congress as part of what looked like a game of congressional musical chairs involving Allen West and Tom Rooney, east coast Republican members of the House of Representatives.

West spurred some of the changes by complaining that Republicans in the state Legislature were undermining him by making his Broward County-Palm Beach County district, which already was a swing district, significantly more Democratic.

In a news release, West said he had promised to faithfully represent his current district, but "a cynical, politicized redistricting process wrought with cronyisms and nefarious in intent, sought to ensure I would not be able to keep that promise."

Neither he nor his advisers would offer details on who was plotting against him or why.

Hasner, however, said he will run in that district, and West will move to a planned new district that covers much of the territory now held by Rooney in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.

Rooney, whose current district straddles the center of the state from Palm Beach to Port Charlotte, announced he will run in a new district expected to be concentrated in Hardee, Highlands, DeSoto and Glades counties, which form much of the eastern half of his current district.

But as state Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith said, one problem in the game of musical congressional seats is that the music isn't finished.

The Legislature isn't expected to finish its work on the new districts until next week, then a legal challenge is all but certain, Smith said.

"It's all well and good if they want to try to move people out of the Senate race," Smith said, "but as to where people will run for the House, that has yet to be determined."

Regardless, the winner in the scenario appears to be Mack.

Paulson said Mack, whose opponents have criticized him for not appearing often on the campaign trail, got "exposure worth millions" while appearing with Romney.

"Anybody who wins a political office pays special attention to those who made an early commitment to them," Paulson said. "Romney's going to remember that favor and return it in kind."

On Monday, when Mack appeared with Romney at a rally in Dunedin, Romney referred to him as "the next senator from Florida."

Asked about Romney and fundraising, Mack adviser David James said, "Certainly, Connie Mack made the rounds in the Romney fundraising circles while they were here and while walking side by side with Mitt at those events."

Candidates in primary races normally don't take sides in other primaries because of the risk of alienating potential supporters in their party.

But Mack went further than just taking sides. He trailed Gingrich to campaign events, criticizing Gingrich to reporters, at least once sparking a confrontation with a Gingrich campaign staff member.

It is possible Mack could experience some backlash. LeMieux blasted him during the week for "stalking and heckling Gingrich" instead of campaigning for the Senate.

But there were few immediate signs of negative consequences.

"I wouldn't have done what he did, but I don't know how people will react," said Gingrich state chairman Bill McCollum.

While campaigning for Romney, Mack missed nine days of voting in the House — 29 of the 33 votes taken this year through Feb. 3, according to the website www.govtrack.us. They included votes on a pay freeze for Congress and civilian federal employees and on repeal of a financially troubled section of the national health care reform plan dealing with long-term care. Both passed by wide margins.

Hillsborough supporters Sam Rashid and former state Sen. John Grant said they don't think Gingrich backers will hold a grudge against Mack — partly because the conservatives who back Gingrich also are likely to be suspicious of LeMieux, who is fighting to overcome the taint of his longtime ties to former Gov. Charlie Crist.

"I wasn't too thrilled about Connie Mack's behavior, but at the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to beat Bill Nelson, and George LeMieux is a worst-case scenario for Florida Republicans," Rashid said.

Crist is anathema to Florida Republicans because he left the party in 2010 and ran against Republican Marco Rubio for the U.S. Senate.

LeMieux, Crist's former chief of staff and campaign manager, has emphasized repeatedly that he advised Crist against the move and immediately backed Rubio when it happened.

LeMieux also argues that his brief tenure in the Senate — he was appointed to a temporary stint there by Crist — showed he was more conservative than Mack.