Recently retired CBS4 Miami anchorman Eliott Rodriguez tells WLRN that he is "seriously considering" running as a Democrat against Republican Miami Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar in this year's mid-term election.
If Rodriguez — a veteran Cuban-American journalist and popular TV personality — does enter the race, it will likely mark the most serious challenge that Salazar, the three-term incumbent for Miami's competitive 27th congressional district, has faced.
"I am seriously considering, but I have not reached the final decision," said Rodriguez, 69, who retired from WFOR TV/CBS4 in December after 25 years with the TV station.
"I need to weigh the pros and cons. I think we're in a time where many of us are concerned about what's happening in this country — I specifically am very concerned about the treatment of immigrants and the trampling of our rights and Constitution — and that's very important to me.
"But on the other hand, this is a big step. And I have to make sure that if I do it, we'll win it. And so they are doing polling, and we're looking at that, and I'm also talking to my family — and we'll have to make a decision soon, because time is of the essence.
"So it won't be long ... but I'm not [yet] a candidate at this time."
READ MORE: Republican Miami Congresswoman Salazar says election night a 'wake up call,' for GOP
Rodriguez re-entered the public spotlight in January, just a month after his retirement, when he was featured in a video titled "Silence Is Not Leadership."
Part of a campaign by the South Florida nonprofit Keep Them Honest, the spot criticized Salazar and Miami's other GOP U.S. Representatives, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez, for not speaking out against President Donald Trump's sweeping and controversial mass deportation of migrants.
That crusade has taken a heavy toll in South Florida's immigrant-rich community. Miami Cuban families, including many in Salazar's 27th District, where Rodriguez has also long resided, are seeing unprecedented numbers of detentions and deportations of undocumented relatives.
Many voters in Salazar's district have expressed anger at Trump's policy.
Although Salazar has criticized Trump administration immigration policy in the past year — including last month's killings of two protesters in Minneapolis by immigration officials — Rodriguez argued in an interview with WLRN last week that she had "been silent for a very long time."
"And I find it interesting," he said, that after the Keep Them Honest video was released, "she writes an op-ed in the Miami Herald saying, 'Well, I haven't been silent, I've been speaking out.' Well yeah, she's been speaking out lately, but ... she has been a cheerleader for the Trump administration."
"She has not done enough," Rodriguez said in the WLRN interview. "For someone who calls herself a champion of immigrants, she sure has not done enough."
In that Herald response op-ed, Salazar — herself a daughter of Cuban immigrants and a former Miami TV journalist — insisted, "I have never been silent, and the people I represent in South Florida know it."
Salazar argued that immigration "has been at the center of my work" since she was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020, and pointed out that she has criticized the targeting of non-criminal as well as criminal migrants as "un-American."
Most of all, Salazar wrote, she has worked for House passage of pro-immigration legislation she's co-sponsoring called The Dignity Act. It would put millions of undocumented workers in the U.S., who meet certain conditions, on a path to legal immigration.
Even liberal immigration advocates have praised Salazar for that effort.
At the same time, however, Salazar confounded those same backers last summer when she said Trump will be remembered "as the Abraham Lincoln" of immigration.
Salazar's office did not reply to WLRN's request for comment on Rodriguez's possible challenge.
Son of immigrants
Rodriguez told WLRN that because he is the son of two Cuban immigrants — who first settled in New York and then moved to Miami when he was a boy — "I have seen with my own eyes what immigrants have contributed to this country, and they do not deserve to be treated in this manner.
"I think people are horrified by what we're seeing when it comes to immigration ... And I think the reaction to the [Keep Them Honest] video so far has been very, very positive."
Political analysts tell WLRN that Rodriguez's possible candidacy, first reported Tuesday morning by the Miami Herald, would make the 27th District race much more competitive — and likely force the Democratic National Committee to steer more campaign resources there than it has in the past few election cycles.
At the moment, only two relatively unknown candidates, Richard Lamondin and Robin Peguero, have thrown their hats into the district's Democratic primary race. Rodriguez's considerably larger name recognition could make him a front-runner in short order.
"I get the sense Eliott is very close to saying, 'Yes, I'm in,'" former WPLG Local 10 journalist Michael Putney, who says he spoke with Rodriguez about the matter earlier this week, told WLRN.
"I would not be surprised if Eliott does run, especially since, given his respected reputation and name recognition, he'd make a formidable candidate."
Whereas Diaz-Balart and Gimenez are in safer red districts, Salazar's 27th is considered more purple — which is a big reason, analysts say, that she has had to take a more moderate, pro-immigration stance than her colleagues have as the November mid-term elections approach.
