Democrat Annette Taddeo challenges incumbent Republican Rep. Maria Salazar for Florida's 27th District
Lynne Sladky/AP Photo; Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo; Insider
- Republican Rep. Maria Salazar is up for reelection to a second term.
- Challenging her is Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democrat.
- The district is in South Florida and includes Miami.
Republican incumbent Rep. Maria Salazar is running for a second term in the US House against Florida Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democrat.
Florida's 27th Congressional District candidates
Salazar was elected to the US House in 2020 after a career as a journalist that included both English and Spanish outlets. Her parents were Cuban exiles, and she grew up in Miami and Puerto Rico.
Salazar voted against President Trump's second impeachment. She wasn't at the Capitol on January 6, 2020, to certify the presidential election because she was under COVID-19 quarantine, but voted alongside House Democrats and 34 Republicans to approve the creation of the January 6 commission.
Taddeo is a state senator who was running for the Democratic nomination for governor before dropping out of the race to run for Congress.
Taddeo unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for Congress in 2016 for a seat that went to former Rep. Joe Garcia. She was also on the lieutenant governor ticket in 2014 alongside Charlie Crist, the current Democratic nominee for governor.
Voting history for Florida's 27th Congressional District
Salazar unsuccessfully ran for the seat before, in 2018, against Donna Shalala, who was Health and Human Services secretary during former President Bill Clinton's two terms, and later, president of the University of Miami.
Salazar defeated Shalala when the two faced each other again in 2020, when former Trump was on the ticket and had made inroads in Florida from his 2016 win.
During the 2020 race, Salazar pilloried Shalala for violating the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 by improperly disclosing personal stock trades. But Salazar herself violated the STOCK Act earlier this year — something for which Taddeo has sharply criticized her.
Before Shalala and Salazar faced off twice, Florida's 27th Congressional District was for almost 30 years held by Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — even though the district leaned Democratic when it came to casting votes for president.
Today, under a redrawn district submitted by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and approved by the Republican-controlled legislature, the district is slightly redder than it used to be because it no longer includes Democratic-leaning Miami Beach.
The money race
Salazar has raised $4.8 million, spent $4.1 million, and has $735,000 cash on hand as of October 19, according to nonpartisan money-in-politics research group OpenSecrets.
Taddeo has raised $1.6 million, spent $1.55 million, and has $45,000 cash on had as of October 19.
As of November 4, super PACs, hybrid PACs, and traditional political action committees had combined to spend about $3 million to advocate for or against the candidates. Most of this money has benefitted Salazar. The pro-Salazar Congressional Leadership Fund, a hybrid PAC led by national Republicans, alone accounts for almost half of the race's outside spending.
What experts say
The race between Salazar and Taddeo was rated as "likely Republican" by Inside Elections and "likely Republican" by Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
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