Jesse Scheckner
Democratic voters Tuesday have a choice between two candidates — Miami-Dade School Board member Lucia Báez-Geller and ex-Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey — to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar in Florida’s 27th Congressional District.
Davey holds a sizable lead in funding despite having less runway to amass cash. Báez-Geller carries a nod from Miami’s newspaper of record.
Both boast numerous notable endorsements.
Báez-Geller, a 15-year educator, announced her candidacy in November after serving just one term on the School Board. She wanted to challenge Salazar, she said, because the two-term incumbent “put party politics over Florida families — and it’s time we vote her out of office.”
Davey entered the race in February, asserting that Salazar is “the center of the problem” when it comes to “chaos and dysfunction in Washington.” He vowed to take a solutions-oriented approach to legislating, prioritizing lowering costs for families and protecting people’s civil liberties.
Through July 31, he raised $555,700 to fund his campaign efforts, $200,000 of it from his bank account. He had $90,500 remaining by Aug. 1.
Báez-Geller, meanwhile, amassed $355,000 and spent all but $46,000 of that sum to head into the Primary’s home stretch.
At 41, Báez-Geller is 17 years Davey’s junior, but she’s not for want of accomplishment. Her teaching career has included work for several teachers unions and “Political Advocate of the Year” honors from the National Education Association.
Since taking office, she distinguished herself as the School Board’s most progressive member, an increasingly taxing title to hold as Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-dominated Legislature enacted censorious new policies to counter so-called “woke indoctrination.”
In 2022, she was the only member of the panel to vote for a proposal she sponsored to observe LGBTQ History Month for the first time in Miami-Dade Schools. Last year, she got two of her Democratic peers to vote “yes” with her.
In a head-to-head matchup with Salazar — who faces one Primary challenger that has yet to report raising or spending a cent — Báez-Geller can similarly lean on her Latin American roots. Báez-Geller was born to a Cuban father and Colombian mother. Both of Salazar’s parents are Cuban expatriates.
Davey, an employment lawyer, would offer a moderate alternative to Salazar. He’s a former Republican, having left the party in 2019 after growing increasingly estranged from its adherents. The final straw, he said, is when his daughter asked him “why (then-President Donald) Trump hates her because she’s not White.”
He’s also the son of first-generation American parents and grew up in a working-class family, he said. A press note from Davey’s campaign said he met his wife, Maria, after she fled Peru during the height of the Shining Path’s terrorist attacks. He later became a stepfather to her son before the couple had a daughter.
Davey has criticized Salazar, who labeled her past political opponents as socialists, for cozying up to the very people and ideologies she decried while voting against federal packages she later took credit for when her constituents benefitted from them.
“We can’t trust Salazar,” he said. “She is so focused on causing chaos and dysfunction that does nothing for South Florida that she claims credit for funding she voted against and cannot even remember what she voted for or against.”
His endorsers include U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell; Mayors Joe Corradino of Pinecrest, Rodney Harris of Miami Gardens, Brent Latham of North Bay Village and John Taylor of Opa-locka; and Key Biscayne Vice Mayor Allison McCormick.
The Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida and Communication Workers of America are among his organizational backers.
Báez-Geller has support from state Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair and state Sen. Shevrin Jones, state Reps. Kevin Chambliss and Ashley Gantt, South Miami Mayor Javier Fernández, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and a dozen or so former state and local leaders.
EMILY’s List, Latino Victory Fund and CHC Bold PAC are also supporting her.
As the Miami Herald noted in its endorsement of her last week, Báez-Geller’s stance on the issue of abortion is informed by her own experience. In April, she penned an op-ed for the paper detailing how she ended a nonviable pregnancy last Spring and how Florida’s current ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy denies that option for women in similar situations.
She said that as a Latina, she speaks “the same language” as many of her constituents. As a working mother, she added, “I live the issues, I walk the issues (and) talk the issues.”
CD 27 covers Miami, Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Key Biscayne, Pinecrest, North Bay Village, South Miami, West Miami and several unincorporated areas. Voters in the district have tended to favor teachers.
The area was long represented by former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a moderate Republican educator and private school operator who served in federal office from 1989 to 2019.
Ros-Lehtinen’s successor, Democrat Donna Shalala, worked for decades as President or Chancellor of three higher education institutions, including the University of Miami.
She defeated Salazar, a longtime TV journalist, for the CD 27 seat in 2018.
Salazar broke the trend in a rematch two years later and was re-elected last year with more than 57% of the vote against former Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo.
She hasn’t proven to be a particularly effective legislator. During her four years in office, she has passed just one bill (HR 4389) to fund projects promoting the conservation of migratory birds. Three others aimed at denouncing socialism, posthumously honoring World War II diplomats who helped save Jewish people during the Holocaust and requiring the Small Business Administration to provide guidance for returning Paycheck Protection Program loans passed in the House.
After losing congressional representation from Florida in 2022, the Democratic Party has narrowed its focus in the state to pursue fewer seats than last year. Those targeted include Salazar’s CD 27 seat and the one Republican Anna Paulina Luna flipped last November in Florida’s 13th Congressional District.
The Democrats’ messaging strategy to flip the seats, so far, has been to highlight the “brinkmanship” of the GOP incumbents, such as Salazar’s vote in September to limit access to an abortion pill and her perpetuation of a widely discredited theory involving voter fraud in the 2020 election.
The Primary is on Aug. 20.
