Former longtime South Florida television news anchorman Eliott Rodriguez won the Democratic primary for Congress in Florida's 27th district Tuesday night.
His win sets up what is expected to be a competitive race in November against another former Miami TV news personality and Cuban-American, three-term incumbent Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar.
Rodriguez defeated former prosecutor Robin Peguero, 54% to 46%, according to the latest election results.
Though a political novice, Rodriguez carried a decisive name recognition advantage — which Democrats hope will give them their first real chance to challenge Salazar since she won the Miami-Dade County congressional seat in 2020.
"I think that Republicans and independents will trust me, and you know why? — because they've known me, they've known me for decades, before they had any clue what my political affiliation is," Rodriguez told WLRN after declaring victory at the Sports Bar Kendall.
Salazar routed her Republican primary opponent, V. Michael Arias, of Coral Gables, 81% to 19%, the latest election results show.
“Now the choice is clear,” Salazar told supporters at her watch party Tuesday night. “We can keep moving South Florida forward, or turn our community over to a Democratic Party increasingly infiltrated by socialists whose policies mean higher costs, weaker borders, more government control, and less freedom. We have seen where socialism leads, and we will not allow it to take root here.”
READ MORE: Ex-anchorman Eliott Rodriguez will run for María Elvira Salazar's Miami congressional seat
In his victory speech, Rodriguez said Miami's and America's affordability crisis would be the focus of his mid-term campaign against Salazar — who he insisted has "ignored" the ever higher cost of living Miamians are facing.
"For too many families, our community has simply become too expensive to live in" he said.
"And too many young people, including members of my own family, they wonder if they can afford to build their future here — or pack up and get out of town...
"This cannot continue to be a community where only the wealthy, millionaires and billionaires, can afford to live."
Rodriguez retired as the popular, longtime Local CBS4 News anchor last December, and announced his candidacy in March.
As a child of Cuban immigrants, like Salazar, Rodriguez is also campaigning against President Donald Trump's aggressive deportation crackdown, which has hit the Cuban and other Latino communities in South Florida especially hard.
Salazar herself, though, has distanced herself from Trump and her party on immigration, calling for a softer approach to migrant detentions and co-sponsoring a bill, the Dignity Act, that would give many undocumented migrants a pathway to legal immigration status in the U.S.
