The Florida Race That Could Show Democrats The Way Forward With Latinos

Recent statewide elections in Florida have begged the question of whether Democrats would seriously consider giving up on the state, as what was once one of the closest battleground states in the nation seems to have moved farther and farther away from the national party.

Republicans are once again expected to win big at the top of the ticket, with Governor Ron DeSantis looking to flex his muscles ahead of a possible presidential run, and Senator Marco Rubio comfortably ahead in the polls in his re-election bid as well.

There is one congressional race, however, that has caught the eye of local political observers: the battle for the 27th Congressional District between incumbent Republican María Elvira Salazar and state senator Annette Taddeo.

In a poll conducted for Taddeo's campaign earlier this month, Florida-based SEA Polling & Strategic Design surveyed 400 Miami-Dade County voters and found the race to be a statistical tie, with Taddeo leading by 1 point. Salazar's super PAC responded with their own poll of 300 district residents showing Salazar up by 6 points, within a six-point margin of error.

Sabato's Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan newsletter run by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said the state's Republican gerrymander resulted in there not being any highly-competitive races in the state, but called the 74% Latino 27th district the "most competitive."

A Taddeo win would be a major victory, not just against a possible red tide in November, but one that could help turn back huge gains made by Republicans in Miami-Dade in 2020. It could also show a way forward for Democrats, serving as evidence of the kind of candidates they should back in heavily-Latino districts in the future, and the importance of fighting in areas that appear to be an uphill climb for the party.

Taddeo's new ad out this week lays out a lot of her campaign strategy in just 30 seconds.

It focuses on Juan Carlos Planas and Wilfredo Allen, two attorneys who voted for Salazar in the past, but say they are now with Taddeo, citing Salazar's support of "government control" of a woman's body, raising taxes on the middle class, and that she "failed" to fight socialism.

Planas, who spoke with Newsweek, isn't just a casual voter who has supported Republicans in the past, however. He led John McCain's legal team in Miami-Dade County in 2008, and worked for George W. Bush in 2004 and Mitt Romney in 2012. During the 2020 election he was a member of Republicans for Biden, and when he saw his party embrace the Big Lie led by former President Donald Trump that he had actually won the election, Planas registered as a Democrat.

"It's easier for me to try to convince my fellow Democrats on school choice and spending less money," he said, "than convince Republicans to be less racist and conspiracy theorists."

He argues that Democrats should run more candidates who know their community but are also pragmatic and can win tough races.

"Annette [Taddeo] is the type of Democrat that I am," Planas said. "She's not an ultra-liberal, she's like a middle of the road, Bill Clinton-type Democrat.

Planas said that the COVID pandemic made him more liberal, because he saw the necessary role of government in helping Americans. He said Taddeo believes in the power of government to make people's lives better, but realizes you have to bring people along slowly. He also said she's a Democrat who believe in law and order and not defunding police.

"Even when I was an Annette opponent it was impossible not to like her," he said.

Taddeo has been buoyed by the endorsements of high-profile Republicans like Al Cardenas, a former chair of the Florida Republican Party, who said on October 5 that it was the first time in four decades he was endorsing a Democrat.

"She puts her country and her state above herself," Cardenas said at the time. "And to me that's now a precondition to supporting anyone running for office: is your country more important than your political career?"

Democrats know Taddeo is in a very difficult race, but say one byproduct of her run is that she has forced Republicans to spend money in a race they thought they had in the bag earlier in the year.

"Win or lose this election, she's made them work for it," Yvonne Gutierrez, the managing director of Latino Victory Project, a group that backs Hispanic Democrats, told Newsweek.

Latino Victory is launching a six-figure digital ad buy in support of Taddeo this week, which will run on digital video and streaming platforms, as well as Facebook and Instagram.

Taddeo told Newsweek that she understands that her campaign has benefited other Democrats nationally because of the money Republicans have had to spend on her race.

"It is very clear that we have a real race on our hands, and they'd rather spend money trying to beat incumbent Democrats," she said, "but they're having to spend millions of dollars in my race."

But Salazar's campaign and Republicans in Florida don't seem too worried about Taddeo, at least publicly.

During a Fox News appearance with Laura Ingraham last week, Salazar said the 2022 midterms will go down as "the year of the Hispanic Republicans."

"The problem with my opponent — not only her, but the whole Democratic Party — is that they have to defend the undefendable," she said. "They have to defend something called Democratic socialism."

Republicans accusing Democrats of being socialists is far from new, and was employed successfully during the 2020 election. While Taddeo notes she fights back hard on the charge, the question of the direction of the Democratic Party nationally is central to the Republican argument against Democrats in Florida and in the 27th District race.

The LIBRE Initiative, which has "fully activated" it's conservative grassroots infrastructure backing Salazar with door-knocking, phone-banking, and a digital ad campaign, told Newsweek that Taddeo is reflective of the national Democratic Party, a pro-big government tax-and-spend Democrat who is going to vote for everything Biden is pushing.

"Unfortunately for them, in that district there aren't a lot of swing Latino voters," said Daniel Garza, the group's executive director. "In Nevada, there is a big pool of swing voters that can swing either way with persuasive efforts. But a lot is already baked in in Florida."

"There's a smaller pool of voters available," he said, "and I don't think Latinos are buying what she's selling, and that's going to be her problem."

Another Florida Republican source with years of experience in state campaigns told Newsweek that the days are gone when moderate Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen owned the district for three decades.

"That race, as much as the headwinds favor Republicans and Florida has transformed in favor of the GOP where they have an edge, it will be tight because that area has historically leaned Democratic," the source said.

Taddeo hasn't just pushed back on socialism charges, she calls them ridiculous. Her father was kidnapped by FARC guerrillas in Colombia, which she has called a "Marxist terrorist group."

And she has also gone on the offensive.

After DeSantis used interest earned on federal funds to purchase airline tickets to send nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard, Taddeo accused Salazar of hypocrisy, tying migrants fleeing communism to the drumbeat of attacks from Republicans using communism and socialism as a cudgel against Democrats.

"You can't be for freedom en Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela if you are not going to defend our freedom and our democracy in the United States of America," Taddeo said.

She told Newsweek she has been critical of the lack of attention from the national Democratic Party to the Latino vote in the past and what she sees coming down the pipeline now. She warns of the increased investment from Republicans in south Florida, but she says her race can be a lesson for Democrats.

"I know things for Democrats look tough in Florida," she said, "but we're one of the few bright spots, creating the model for the future for Florida Democrats."

A veteran Florida Democrat agreed, but only in part.

The source told Newsweek that the party should run more candidates like Taddeo as a way of addressing the fact that they have "ceded so many different parts of the country and so many districts," which makes the party look "weak."

But considering the absence of a concerted Democratic effort in the state, the source didn't see Taddeo winning.

"I don't see how she can overcome the Republican headwinds coming in Florida," the source said. "Trying to overcome the absence of any established Democratic campaign in Florida is asking the impossible, even of a good candidate."