Miami
FLORIDA Florida’s 27th District race pits María Elvira Salazar against Eliott Rodriguez
The Republican incumbent is seeking a fourth term in one of South Florida’s most closely watched contests. Her Democratic challenger is running on a different approach to living costs, immigration and U.S. policy toward Latin America.
Florida’s 27th Congressional District is shaping up as a high-profile contest between Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar and Democrat Eliott Rodriguez>, two former television anchors with Cuban family roots but sharply different messages on immigration, housing and Washington’s role in Latin America.
Florida Politics described the race as one of the most closely watched federal contests in the state this cycle. The district includes Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Key Biscayne, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, West Miami and Miami neighborhoods south of the Dolphin Expressway in Miami-Dade County.
According to the outlet, roughly three-quarters of district residents are Hispanic and more than half are foreign-born. Republicans hold a voter registration edge with nearly 39% of the district’s 394,006 voters, while third- and no-party voters account for 33% and Democrats for 28%.
Salazar, 65, is seeking a fourth term while emphasizing bipartisan achievements, local funding and opposition to Latin American dictatorships. Rodriguez, 70, is making his first run for public office after retiring from television in 2025, saying rising housing costs, threats facing immigrants and concerns about democratic institutions pushed him into the race.
Florida Politics reported that Rodriguez is campaigning on workforce housing on underused federal land, lower-interest mortgages for public servants and federal support for catastrophe insurance. He also opposes Donald Trump’s tariffs, backs lower prescription drug costs, supports voluntary Medicare enrollment for people ages 55 to 64 and says he would protect retirement benefits. He is also calling for a ban on individual stock trading by members of Congress and the executive branch.
Salazar is running on a six-year record that includes constituent services, job fairs, federal appropriations and legislative work. Her office said she secured more than $89 million for 47 community projects, including senior housing, a community health center expansion, pediatric mental healthcare, flood control and coastal resiliency efforts.
Florida Politics noted that Salazar has taken credit for funding she voted against, including $4.4 million for Cutler Bay’s Marlin Road project and $650,000 presented to Florida International University in 2023, both tied to a government spending bill she opposed.
On healthcare, Salazar joined Democrats in January to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies despite Trump’s opposition. Rodriguez also supports restoring those subsidies, which the outlet said remain a major issue in a district with unusually high Obamacare enrollment.
On immigration, both candidates support border security, though they differ in degree. Rodriguez favors faster case processing and protections for Dreamers, Haitians, Venezuelans and eligible Cubans. He also wants major changes at ICE and argues that a September Salazar campaign ad criticizing Trump’s hardline immigration policies does not erase her funding votes or favorable comments about the now-closed Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in the Everglades.
Florida Politics said Salazar’s breaks with Trump on immigration predated that ad. In March, she helped force a vote on temporary protected status for Haitians and backed similar steps for Venezuelans. Her bipartisan Dignity Act, first filed in 2022 and reintroduced in July 2025, would pair border enforcement and E-Verify requirements with renewable legal status for qualifying immigrants who arrived before 2021.
Participants would face background checks, pay back taxes and pay $7,000 over seven years. The outlet said the measure does not create a path to citizenship in its main program, though separate provisions would help Dreamers. Florida Politics also cited recent polling showing that 75% of Florida voters support a conditional path to citizenship and 52% oppose legal status without one, a feature Rodriguez has criticized.
Cuba and Venezuela remain central dividing lines. Salazar, who chairs the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, regularly denounces repression and calls for the release of political prisoners. Florida Politics reported that she, along with Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez, supports isolating Havana and backs Trump’s regional policies, including the extrajudicial killing of suspected drug traffickers off Venezuela’s coast and an overnight raid that resulted in the arrest of Nicolás Maduro.
Rodriguez opposes Marxist-Leninist governments in Latin America but rejects the current federal strategy for confronting them. He said Maduro’s arrest had less to do with restoring democracy in Venezuela than with taking its oil, and he argued that policies worsening deprivation for ordinary Cubans are unacceptable, favoring an economic transition toward democracy instead.
Florida Politics also said Rodriguez has pressed for answers about controversial Salazar campaign donors, including Xavier Jordán, Lenir Pérez, Manuel Rocha and Fernando Valdés Pérez. Salazar’s campaign said it would return Rocha’s money and donate an equivalent amount from Valdés Pérez’s contributions to Cuban-freedom groups. The outlet said the campaign did not answer a question about Jordán.
The closing stretch has also featured a dispute over debates. Florida Politics reported that Rodriguez accepted invitations to three televised debates, while Salazar’s campaign did not respond to requests from CBS Miami, Local 10 and Telemundo 51. The outlet added that Salazar has not debated an opponent since 2020.
As for the state of the race, Florida Politics said an August poll commissioned by Rodriguez’s campaign showed the two candidates tied at 45%. It also noted that Cook Political Report, Fox News and Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved the race from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.
On campaign finance, the outlet reported that Salazar raised more than $2.55 million since winning re-election in 2024 and spent $2.58 million to defend the seat, while still holding $1.6 million from prior cycles by mid-October. Rodriguez, meanwhile, raised $1.56 million and spent $945,600 after entering the race.
Election Day is Tuesday.
Sources
About this piece. Written by El Notero with AI assistance, from reporting published by the outlet cited above. El Notero did no original reporting on this story.
