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Leading Off
FL-27
Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar launched a new ad on Thursday distancing herself from Donald Trump, who easily carried her heavily Latino constituency in the southern Miami area two years ago.
Salazar’s spot, though, comes as a backlash against Trump’s hardline immigration policies is weakening the GOP with Latino voters across the country—a backlash that, according to a new poll from Democrats, could take down Salazar this fall.
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That survey, conducted by Tulchin Research and released by the House Majority PAC, found Salazar leading her Democratic opponent, Eliott Rodriguez, just 47-46 in Florida’s 27th Congressional District.
The poll became public just hours after Salazar drew widespread attention with her ad, in which she directly addresses Trump and tells him in English that “some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.” (In a Spanish version, she was even blunter, saying “your immigration policies have gone too far.”)
In the English spot, she continues, “In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
Salazar, who is seeking a fourth term, goes on to urge Trump to change his stance so that he can be “for immigration what Lincoln was to slavery and Reagan was for communism.” (The Spanish ad omits this line.)
But her Democratic rival says that both Trump and Salazar have already proven they can’t be trusted on this issue.
“Maria Elvira Salazar did this,” Rodriguez, a former local TV anchorman, said in a statement responding to the new ad. “She owns all of these deportations, ICE harassment and racial profiling. She voted for all this. She gave Trump the money and the tools to do this.”
Salazar’s commercial comes two years after she told the Miami Herald that Trump was the “only” person who could properly address immigration—a line she repeated in the Spanish version of her ad. On that occasion, though, she likened him to yet another Republican president.
“Let’s give him a chance because Trump could be for immigration what Nixon was for China,” the congresswoman said in October of 2024. “I am going to be the No. 1 voice within the GOP to tell him: Mr. President, this is your moment, why don’t you just grab it, period.”
The Herald noted at the time that Salazar “didn’t directly criticize Trump’s call to deport all undocumented immigrants.” The congresswoman instead said that “criminals” should be forced out.
Trump himself praised Salazar for doing a “truly fantastic job” in February when he took to Truth Social to offer her his “Complete and Total Endorsement.” As is standard for such posts, he also praised the congresswoman for, among other things, working to “Keep our Border SECURE” and “Stop Migrant Crime.”
Rodriguez announced the following month that he would seek to take on Salazar, an opponent he has more than a little in common with. Rodriguez, who is also the child of Cuban immigrants, retired last December after 25 years with CBS News Miami, while Salazar worked as a Spanish-language anchor before entering politics.
But while Rodriguez only became the Democratic nominee last month following a competitive primary, prominent groups from both parties began preparing for a hotly contested general election well before then.
The House Majority PAC reserved over $11 million in the Miami media market in June, while the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund booked a comparable amount soon after. At least some of those bookings, however, will likely be directed toward Florida’s 25th District, where Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz faces a tough reelection fight now that Republicans have redrawn his seat.
Salazar, though, benefited considerably more from Trump’s huge gains among Latino voters, a demographic that had thoroughly rejected him in 2016 but became considerably friendlier to him over his next two campaigns.
But while Republicans hoped—and Democrats feared—that this shift might mark the start of a major realignment in American politics, Salazar’s ad is only the latest sign that a very different transformation is underway.
Trump’s widespread unpopularity has harmed Republicans with just about every demographic, but his attacks on immigrants have been especially toxic with Latinos, including his former supporters. One unnamed Trump advisor summed up GOP fears in comments to Axios for a piece on Salazar’s new ad.
“I’m getting the Trumpiest Cubans sending me videos from Miami of guys getting busted at places like the gas station, for no apparent reason,” the operative said.
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A super PAC called Fresh Start SC is spending $2.5 million to help Democrat Andrews in her campaign against Republican Sen. Darline Graham, Semafor reported on Thursday.
The group’s new ad slams Graham for “support[ing] a plan to make health care harder,” saying her approach “would kick millions of Americans off their health care, including families with seniors and children.”
It’s the first notable infusion of outside support for Andrews, who faces a difficult race in conservative South Carolina. However, an average of polls compiled by FiftyPlusOne gives Graham just a 45-43 edge over her Democratic opponent.
Obituaries
Jon Kyl
Former Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican who served from 1995 to 2013 and briefly returned for a four-month stint in 2018, died on Thursday at the age of 84.
Kyl, who was elected to a safely Republican seat in the House in 1986, sought a promotion eight years later when longtime Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini opted not to seek reelection. The 1994 national GOP landslide helped propel Kyl to a 54-40 victory that would leave his party in control of both the state’s Senate seats for the next 24 years.
Six years later, Democrats didn’t even field a candidate against Kyl. And even in 2006, when Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress, he prevailed by a comfortable 53-43 margin.
Kyl became minority whip in late 2007 after Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi abruptly resigned from the Senate on his way to becoming a lobbyist, and he served as Mitch McConnell’s top deputy for the rest of his tenure.
Ahead of the 2012 elections, though, Kyl decided to retire rather than seek a fourth term. Fellow Republican Jeff Flake won a close contest to replace him, but Flake retired after just one term following his clashes with Donald Trump, who poisoned the senator’s standing among GOP voters.
Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who was still four years away from becoming an independent, would go on to end the Arizona GOP’s Senate monopoly by narrowly defeating Republican Rep. Martha McSally.
Kyl, though, unexpectedly served with Flake starting in September of 2018 after Gov. Doug Ducey appointed him to replace the late John McCain. After providing a crucial vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, he resigned at the end of the year and was replaced by McSally, who swiftly lost again—this time to Democrat Mark Kelly—in 2020.
Kansas Emerson:
Hamilton 45 Marshall 43 Graham (L) 4
Masterson 51 Holscher 44
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/kansas-2026/
I encourage all who can to donate to Rodriguez and help flip FL-27.