Voters in Florida’s 27th Congressional District will choose between Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and Democrat Eliott Rodriguez in the midterm election. Both are Cuban American and retired broadcast journalists, and both have ties to South Florida media and higher education.
The two disagree sharply on President Donald Trump. Rodriguez told Local 10 News that Salazar voted to fund ICE and stayed silent when Alligator Alcatraz was operating in the state. Salazar, who has served in Congress since 2021, has pointed to her record over six years and said constituents should judge whether she represented them well.
Federal Election Commission data showed Salazar had raised more than $2.5 million in total receipts as of Oct. 14. Rodriguez had more than $1.56 million.
Salazar, 64, is a former Spanish-language TV host who once interviewed Fidel Castro in New York City in 1995. Her campaign has emphasized flood mitigation, coastal resilience and the Take It Down Act, which makes it a crime to publish intimate images without consent, including AI-generated deepfakes.
Rodriguez, 69, was born in the Bronx and worked at The Miami Herald before becoming a familiar anchor in South Florida, including at WPLG Local 10. Both candidates attended Miami Dade College and the University of Miami.
