Former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey, who didn’t make it past a Democratic primary in 2024, is looking at making another run for Congress, motivated by a desire to reverse some of President Donald Trump’s assaults on the rule of law.
Trump’s approval has cratered, with a recent survey showing a historic low as he approaches his first 100 days in his second term, with a 59% disapproval in an Associated Press-NORC poll.
“Do you feel better off than you did 100 days ago?” Davey asked. “We are looking at the numbers,” he said of another run. “We do have a path,” he told the Independent recently.
The combination of sweeping tariffs, a declining stock market, unilateral government agency cuts, aggressive deportations and multiple reversals by the courts may rapidly be shifting political calculations.
If Davey won the 2026 primary and faced U.S. Rep Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Miami, it would mean two Key Biscayne residents would face each other.
The incumbent Republican lawmaker recently moved to the island. She cruised to a 60-40 blowout in November, dispatching former Miami-Dade School Board Member Lucia Báez-Geller. Davey lost to Báez-Geller in the primary, 54-46.
Salazar has recently been shifting the imagery on her social media feeds, posting feel-good images of herself with constituents, a switch-up of posts that typically focused on international issues.
In the past month, she’s posted grip and grins with pilots, shopkeepers, and even a shot of her having her hair done in a salon.
Salazar recently welcomed the U.S. Labor Secretary to the Port of Miami, even as shippers warn of a precipitous drop because of tariffs against China that could result in supply chain shortages.
'Safe' Republican district
The congressional district, FL-27, covers much of coastal Miami and is still rated as “safe” or “solid” for Republicans by the major political rating sites. And it would seem any credible challenge would be a herculean task.
Indeed, Florida Democrats have struggled to find a footing without a single statewide officeholder — and that was before a major party leader stunned colleagues last week by saying he was quitting. State Sen. Jason Pizzo, the Democratic minority leader, abruptly left the party and became an independent after saying the party was “dead.”
But in the face of that turmoil, Davey, a former Republican, sees an opportunity created by Trump’s unpopular star – and Salazar’s ties to the president.
“People do not have faith in the economy,” he said, saying Republicans in Congress should be pushing back on Trump’s actions. “We need people in Congress standing up to Trump’s bad decisions.”
Miami Democrats set up a billboard on a heavily traveled expressway showing Salazar and other Cuban-Americans with the label “traitors.”
Salazar, as well as Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez have defended Trump despite the president’s efforts to eliminate protections that allow hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Cubans, and other migrants to live and work legally in the United States.
Salazar, 63, has been perhaps the most vocal of the three, saying Trump must not eliminate some of the immigration protections that are popular among Miami residents, specifically advocating for Cubans and some Venezuelans.
A federal judge recently intervened to block the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. After the judge’s ruling, Salazar gave Trump — not the judge — credit for “doing the right thing.”
Blaming Biden
Salazar has blamed Democratic President Joe Biden for creating a system under which Cubans were no longer being allowed to apply for legal residency a year after arriving in the U.S. under the Cuban Adjustment Act. She said she has put pressure on the new administration to stop arresting those Cubans who were allowed under that system and said she intervened and secured the release of a nursing student.
She is pushing for immigration changes — anathema to much of the Republican base nationally — in a video she posted to X only in Spanish.
“We are the only ones in Congress who are helping you,” she said. “We’re trying to make that piece of trash paper the Biden administration gave them so that they can receive parole and then benefit from the Cuban Adjustment Act.”
“Things are changing,” she said. “President Trump has said that those illegals who are criminals should leave, and I agree. They should be kicked out. But the lady who has been here cleaning for 10, 15, 20 years, or the one who is picking tomatoes, or the one who is picking oranges, or the one who is peeling potatoes in a New York restaurant, we must give them dignity.”
Salazar, in an opinion column for the Miami Herald on Friday, defended her record on immigration in response to a letter by Cuban American health care businessman Mike Fernandez published in the newspaper. The former GOP political donor accused Salazar, Diaz-Balart, Gimenez and Rubio of “complicity and cowardice” in the face of Trump’s “cruelty toward immigrants.”
“I don’t belong in any letter calling out inaction. I’ve been on the battlefield in Congress, willing to take the political risk and lead the charge,” she wrote.
Adriana Gomez Licon from The Associated Press contributed to this story.
This story was originally published in the Key Biscayne Independent, a WLRN News partner.
