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Zika May Infect Florida Senate Race as Money to Fight Virus Lags

  • Record tourism in Florida collides with fears of an outbreak
  • Democrats think Republicans could pay a price in November
Larry Smart, a Miami-Dade County mosquito control inspector, uses a fogger to spray pesticide to kill mosquitos as the county fights a possible Zika virus outbreak on May 26, 2016, in Miami.

Larry Smart, a Miami-Dade County mosquito control inspector, uses a fogger to spray pesticide to kill mosquitos as the county fights a possible Zika virus outbreak on May 26, 2016, in Miami.

Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Republicans running to fill Marco Rubio’s U.S. Senate seat bragged at a dinner in Boca Raton, Florida, last week about opposing red-light traffic cameras and trying to impeach the Internal Revenue Service commissioner. The one thing they didn’t mention was the Zika virus, which could loom large in the November election.

Florida, the ultimate swing state in the race to determine control of the White House and Senate, is on the front lines of the mosquito-borne virus, which has swept through South America and the Caribbean, leaving a trail of birth defects.