It’s Collazo vs. Rizo for House District 110
Democrat Annette Collazo and Republican Alex Rizo vie to replace José Oliva in House District 110, a sliver of inland Miami-Dade around Miami Lakes and Hialeah.
BOTH CANDIDATES ARE CUBANAMERICANS WITH AN EDUCATION BACKGROUND.
Two political newcomers hoping to fill the seat left vacant by term-limited House Speaker José Oliva share a background in education, Cuban heritage and the hopes to represent their communities in
House District 110, a sliver of inland Miami-Dade around Miami Lakes and Hialeah that extends to the Broward County line.
Democrat Annette Collazo, a Miami-Dade County Public Schools teacher will face Republican Alex Rizo, an education consultant and former administrator and teacher. Both Collazo and Rizo went unopposed in their respective primaries in August.
District 110’s registered voters are fairly split: about 30% Democrat, 36% Republican, and 33% no party affiliation, according to state records. The district encompasses Hialeah, a Republican bastion where more than half of the 240,000 residents are Cuban. It is a place where Democrats have repeatedly fallen short of challenging conservative politicians.
The seat leans Republican, though 52.4% of voters went for Hillary Clinton in 2016. The same year, Oliva won his 2016 election by just 5,114 votes. He ran unopposed in 2018, and just 44% of the district voted for Democrat Andrew Gillum for governor.
Anthony Pedicini, a Republican strategist and consultant, said the district is a “strong Republican House seat” and that President Donald Trump’s candidacy will only help.
“With Cuban Americans strongly in the president’s corner, it should remain so,” he said.
That said, neither candidate is getting much attention from the state parties, which are pouring resources into defending and flipping competitive seats elsewhere. Oliva has not endorsed Rizo to be his successor, though he has involved himself in other Miami-Dade races.
Collazo said internal polling conducted by her campaign shows that race will be tight, and that “the preponderance of Cuban people in this community may cause others to think it will remain red.”
“I disagree,” she said, “but can’t spend every day focusing on the support I’m not getting. No one is going to care about this campaign as much as I do.”
Incoming House Minority co-Leader Evan Jenne, who is helping coordinate Democrats’ House campaigns, said the seat is “tough” and that while Collazo is a “great candidate,” Trump will likely have an outsized effect on voters.
“It’s going to come to that for how a lot of people are voting in that area,” he said.
The state party has chipped in about $13,700 in cash, campaign staffing and data.
“The Florida Democratic Party is investing in this race and we believe Annette can flip the district blue,” said Rosy Gonzalez Speers, the party’s senior adviser for the down-ballot races.
Collazo and her political committee, Teachers to Tallahassee, have outraised Rizo by a small margin, bringing in $132,880 to his approximately $104,000.
A PAC chaired by the executive director of a secretive, deep-pocketed Florida progressive donor group chipped in a cool $15,000 to Collazo’s PAC, but the bulk of her 1,700 donors are individuals. many from out of state. Rizo’s 151 contributions are largely big-money donors, like Friends of Ray Rodrigues, the PAC associated with GOP Rep. Ray Rodrigues and powerful lobbying firm Rubin, Turnbull & Associates.
RIZO A SCHOOLS ADMINISTRATOR
Rizo is a former teacher at Barbara Goleman Senior
High School in Miami Lakes and assistant principal at Hialeah Middle, Lawton Chiles Middle and American High School. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Florida International University and a master’s degree in educational leadership from Nova Southeastern University in 2000.
In 2006 he left the school system and founded companies that manage fee-based after-school and tutoring programs. He also runs a consulting firm that specializes in charter schools and college preparatory tutoring. He also serves as the elected vice chair of Miami-Dade County’s Community Council 5.
Rizo hopes to bring an administrative perspective to the conversation around education policy in Tallahassee and, if elected, would prioritize the return of the district cost differential to increase funding for public school students in South Florida or other places where the cost of living is more expensive. He also has interest in finding alternatives to standardized testing and increasing workforce education and technical education.
“Education has been my whole career,” he said. “I have had more than double the amount of time that [Collazo’s] been a teacher.”
Rizo, co-founder of the Hialeah/Miami Lakes Republican Club, has firmly aligned himself to the right, attending events in support of the reelection of President Donald Trump and courting endorsements from area Republicans like state Sen. Manny Diaz Jr.
COLLAZO COMES
FROM CLASSROOM
Collazo, a first-time candidate, was raised in Hialeah Gardens, but has lived in District 110 for the last decade. She studied economics at Florida International University and became a banker, but decided to go into education soon after. Early in her career, she taught at Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School during the school year and tended bar at The Bend Liquor Lounge during the summer.
Before she left her job to run for office, she chaired the social studies department at the Miccosukee Indian School.
Collazo got her start in politics working as an organizer on Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, and went on to involve herself in other, nonpartisan organizations. She is a founding board member at Engage Miami, a nonprofit aimed at increasing voter turnout among South Florida youth, and ¿Que Pasa, Hialeah? She’s also involved in the Kiwanis Club of Hialeah.
“We need someone who is closely connected to the things our community is facing: living paycheck to paycheck, being part of a small business, risking it all,” she said. “I think those experiences are valuable.”
If elected, she said her top priorities would include increased teacher pay (though she did commend Gov. Ron DeSantis for pushing teacher pay as an issue during the 2020 legislative session) and school funding, especially for workforce education programs and special needs support and job training. She supports school choice, but says charter schools need to be held to the same standard to which the state holds traditional public schools.
She recognizes that both she and Rizo have similar views and priorities when it comes to education, but that she has less of a bias toward charter schools, which make up some of Rizo’s clientele.
“The difference between us is that I’m a teacher,” she said. “I have been more involved on the ground.”