MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — The primary election for Florida’s 27th Congressional District is ongoing on Tuesday for both the Republican and Democratic parties.
The U.S. Census reported in 2024 that the district is home to about 788,713 people. It covers about 119 square miles in Miami-Dade County, according to the Census Reporter.
Republican primary
The ballot includes two candidates: The incumbent and a challenger.
U.S. REP. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR
Salazar, 64, a retired broadcast journalist and author with degrees from Harvard and the University of Miami, is seeking re-election.
Salazar, whose parents are Cuban, won the seat in 2020 after defeating Democratic incumbent Donna Shalala, a former Secretary of Health and Human Services, and took office in 2021.
Salazar is loyal to President Donald Trump, but sided with Democrats who want the Trump administration to extend the temporary protected status of Haitians and Venezuelans. She co-authored the Dignity Act to speed up asylum processing.
Salazar’s victories include the Take It Down Act to criminalize the nonconsensual sharing of authentic or AI-generated intimate images, and working with Democrats on the Dispose Act to stop fentanyl before it crosses the border.
VINCENT MICHAEL ARIAS
Arias, 68, a Coral Gables-based attorney, is challenging Salazar in the Republican primary.
Arias is a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney and a former assistant state attorney in Orlando.
Democratic primary
The ballot includes two candidates.
ROBIN PEGUERO
Peguero, 40, an attorney and author, grew up in Hialeah to parents from the Dominican Republic and Ecuador who served in the U.S. Army.
Peguero graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and served as a federal prosecutor and as investigative counsel on the House Select Committee of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
ELIOTT RODRIGUEZ
Rodriguez, who was born in New York to Cuban parents, is a retired veteran broadcast journalist and father of two.
Rodriguez, a University of Miami graduate, has a long career that includes WPLG-Local 10 News and CBS News Miami.
VOTER GUIDE: Here is how to prepare for Florida’s Aug. 18 primary election
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