Maria Elvira Salazar

Former CBS4 anchorman Eliott Rodriguez confirms he's running for the seat of Miami Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar — raising the prospect of an unusually competitive race in Florida's 27th District.

Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a key figure in former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, is joining a crowded field of Democratic candidates seeking to unseat Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar.

“As the Cuban regime enters its final hour, the cry for freedom is no longer a whisper. It is a roar,” said Salazar, a daughter of Cuban exiles, in a statement late Monday. “Rosa María Payá embodies the moral courage this dictatorship has tried to crush for decades and failed to extinguish."

Recently retired CBS4 news anchorman Eliott Rodriguez told WLRN "I am seriously considering" a Democratic challenge for GOP Miami Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar's seat this year — and immigration is a key reason.

The lone South Florida Republican to join Democrats was U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, of Miami, whose congressional district has one of the highest ACA enrollment rates in the country.

South Florida lawmakers, who have long been united in their bipartisan condemnation of the Venezuelan regime led by President Nicolás Maduro, on Saturday morning applauded the Trump administration, and U.S. military and U.S. law enforcement authorities, for capturing the “narco-terrorist” and bringing him to justice in the U.S.

All eight Florida congressional Democrats, including South Florida’s five U.S. Representatives, voted in favor of two resolutions to invoke the War Powers Act of 1973, which was intended to reassert congressional power over the declaration of war.

“Let’s be clear, in Virginia and New Jersey, the GOP would have had a much better chance of winning if the Hispanic vote would have stuck with the GOP," Salazar said in her widely viewed social media post

The measure — the Keep SNAP Funded Act of 2025 (H.R. 5822) — would direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture to maintain full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, operations throughout any lapse in government funding.

Even before the federal government shut down Wednesday, Democratic and Republican lawmakers in South Florida were engaging in partisan finger pointing on who's to blame for the legislative standoff.

President Trump failed to revoke DACA in his first term and his focus on immigration this time has mostly ignored the policy. Still, Republican lawmakers are deferring to the president on the issue.

Robin Peguero is blasting the Miami Republican lawmaker for voting against a critical infrastructure project in Cutler Bay — and then championing its approval.