A contentious race for Florida’s 27th Congressional District may be headed to a recount as Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar and Democratic challenger Eliott Rodriguez were separated Tuesday night by almost exactly half a percentage point – the trigger for a mandatory recount.
Salazar, who flipped the seat in 2020 and has held onto it since, struck a celebratory tone despite the lack of a definitive outcome.
“We prevailed against all odds, and we have to give thanks to the Almighty,” said the Republican, who held a minuscule lead. “It’s no doubt that it’s a moment of celebration, but it’s also a moment of reckoning.”
Rodriguez, a former CBS Miami anchor, addressed supporters at a rowdy watch party at Pub 52 in South Miami and said the race was “too close to call.”
“We are going to wait until every single vote is counted,” he told the crowd. “South Florida trusted me to report facts, to tell the truth and have credibility,” he said, referencing his previous career. “So I’m going to tell you the truth right now. We simply don’t know. It’s a couple of hundred votes difference between us, and that means that we have to be patient.”
Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia told The Florida Trib late Tuesday that her department was still tallying a few scattered votes and that a final outcome might not be known until Saturday.
Rodriguez, who recently retired from CBS Miami after a 25-year run, mounted a competitive bid to unseat Salazar in a contest that was viewed by some as a referendum on President Donald Trump among South Florida Hispanic voters who helped carry the president to victory just two years earlier. The district includes Key Biscayne, Cutler Bay, Coral Gables, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami and West Miami.
It’s a district that’s about three-quarters Hispanic, where Republicans have the advantage, making up about 40 percent of the 394,000 registered voters compared to Democrats’ 28 percent.
But like many Republican candidates across the country Tuesday night, Salazar faced a stiff test even as she ran for a seat she had won handily in previous election cycles. In 2024, Salazar beat Lucia Báez-Geller by 21 percentage points; in 2022, she defeated Annette Taddeo by 15 percentage points.
Another South Florida Republican House member had an easier night. U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez won his fourth term in Congress, defeating Democratic challenger Phil Ehr, a retired Navy commander, and no-party candidate Eddy Rojas in the race for District 28.
The race in District 27 between the two former TV anchors with Cuban roots centered largely on immigration, amid a nationwide crackdown that’s sent shockwaves across South Florida, home to some of the country’s largest immigrant communities.
Salazar tried to get ahead of the changing tide earlier this fall. In September, she publicly broke from Trump in a direct-to-camera message in which she told the president that “some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.”
“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” Salazar, standing in front of the White House, said in the viral campaign video.
In his campaign messaging, Rodriguez said politicians in Washington D.C. are “focused on political theater and culture wars.”
“Immigrants are being demonized,” he said in a video announcing his candidacy. “Cruelty has become policy.”
