SAME FOES, BUT DIFFERENT FEEL
They had a tough race in 2018, but this time it looks different
Incumbent Congresswoman Donna Shalala and challenger Maria Elvira Salazar had a tough 2018 race for the District 27 House seat. This year’s rematch is looking different.
WASHINGTON
The November ballot will look the same for voters in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, but a lot has changed since Donna Shalala, a Democrat, defeated Republican Maria Elvira Salazar in 2018.
Last time, polling showed a neck-and-neck race between the former University of Miami president and the Spanishlanguage television personality. Democrats at the time were publicly critical of Shalala’s campaign, saying she hadn’t done a good job reaching voters.
Now there’s no talk about the race being a toss-up. Outside groups that spend millions on TV ads in competitive races aren’t bothering to put money behind either candidate, a sign that Shalala is expected to keep her seat.
Shalala, a one-term congresswoman, spent the last two years in the House of Representatives passing bills promoted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, holding town halls before the coronavirus pandemic ended them and being one of the leading anti-Bernie Sanders voices among Democrats when the socialist Vermont senator was leading in the Democratic presidential primary.
Salazar, the challenger for the second time, has spent the last two years working as an independent TV host and launching a new campaign for the same seat within a year of her first unsuccessful try. She’s posted campaign videos on her YouTube page next to interviews of public figures like Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez on COVID-19 best practices.
But with Shalala favored to win the seat again, Salazar has started changing her messaging. In a recent TV interview with CBS4 Miami, she said, “if you like your Obamacare, you can keep it,” despite years of efforts by Republicans to repeal the law. She followed that with an assertion that Shalala’s “corruption” is the most important issue in the race — though she provided no evidence backing up the allegation.
Shalala, who worked as President Bill Clinton’s Health and Human Services secretary and as UM’s president before winning elected office, said she is relying on her work in the district — which includes most of coastal Miami-Dade County from Miami Beach to Cutler Bay — to secure her seat. The district voted for Hillary Clinton over President Donald Trump by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016.
“I have two years of keeping my promises. I don’t have to run on my