The Salazar Swing

It has been forgotten, amidst the uproar over this ad, that Congresswoman María Salazar has tried to call out Trump’s immigration dragnet before. A similar uproar broke out in June 2025 after Salazar and Latinas for Trump founder Ileana Garcia called out Stephen Miller for specific tactics he was using, specifically snatching people at courthouses while they were legally pursuing due process for immigration claims. And when I wrote a long post threading through the extent that Cuban-Americans allowed themselves to ignore the gutter racism on which Trump was running (Salazar’s district includes a good number of the Haitians Trump targeted with his dog-eating smear), I noted that Democrats need not call out their delusions, because the effect would split Trump’s base in any case. Don’t get in their way! At this point, any pushback on Miller’s gulag, any focus on him and his lies, is welcome. We will not make it through this unless we exploit every single break that Republicans make with Trump. We will not make it through this unless we convince a significant number of Trump voters to push back or better yet disavow their vote. Salazar’s earlier complaints didn’t work, at least not sustainably. Cubans were on the flight to South Sudan for which SCOTUS sanctioned third country removal and their third country deportations have stepped up in recent months. So once again, Salazar attempted to make a nuanced appeal to Trump, reminding him pointedly of the coalition that put him in the White House in 2024. The move came just a day after Karl Rove, the last prominent Republican who attempted to be a Reagan on immigration, publicly backed a Democrat after the GOP candidate for Texas Railroad Commission celebrated a Texas football win with what Rove described as “raw, uncut bigotry.” As happened in June 2025, the backlash to Salazar’s public criticism of Trump’s worst immigration excesses will create even more problems for Republicans’ ability to get Latinos to the polls. It likely won’t significantly reverse momentum in Salazar’s race, and it’ll create a toxic discussion nationally, as the fascists within the party attack Salazar as a Latina. Salazar’s video has apparently been in the works for several weeks. Newsmax’s Marisela Ramirez posted a picture of Salazar filming the ad on September 3. Since then, at least one ratings outlet has moved Salazar’s race closer to flipping, though still Lean Republican; the more cautious Cook Report hasn’t moved her race since April, and so may be due. But Marc Caputo (in a post which he said he’d been “been picking away at … for a few days because I’ve been really surprised by the broad-based angst in the GOP” in Florida) said a Republican pollster from Miami found Salazar’s race (and that of Byron Donalds) to be tied. Zoom in: A bellwether, Miami-Dade is Florida’s most-populous county, which Trump flipped to the Republican column in 2020 and 2024 thanks to strong Latino support, especially among Cuban Americans. - “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar says in her ad. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.” - Trump carried her district by 15 points two years ago. Today, she’s tied in polls with newscaster Eliot Rodriguez, a fellow Cuban American, who said her new ad was a sign of desperation. - A Trump adviser told Axios: “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.” By the numbers: In Miami-Dade, 62% of the county’s 1.3 million registered voters are Hispanic. They account for 76% of the registered Republicans. - 63% of Hispanic voters said they supported “deporting illegal immigrants” while 34% were opposed to them, according to a poll conducted last month by a GOP pollster and shared with Axios - But those numbers switched when it came to how deportations were being carried out: Just 29% were in favor; 58% were opposed. - “The support is just evaporating. The economy sucks and ICE is just out of control,” said the pollster, who’s from Miami. “People feel they didn’t sign up for this.” [snip] - Republicans say they’re not too worried about conservative Hispanic voters switching to vote for Democrats, but they all believe turnout for the GOP will be low, which could affect legislative and congressional contests, and perhaps the race for governor. Caputo describes that these polls showing a tie race were taken last month, so before Salazar shot the ad. Since then, prices just keep getting worse, and generic ballot support for Democrats has accelerated along with those prices. Perhaps more important, given the district, around about then, Trump declared that he was stealing Venezuela’s oil, with Delcy Rodriguez’ help, which led Salazar to post, then delete, a tweet lambasting the theft. Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar did a quick about-face on President Trump’s massive Venezuela oil deal Saturday — deleting a social media post blasting the pact before returning to declare it was “a great deal” for America and the Venezuelan people Salazar, who has been outspoken of communist Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, took to X to declare that the pact would come to an end once President Trump’s term ends. “Any oil “deal” with Venezuela’s interim regime has an expiration date: the day President Trump leaves the White House,” Salazar wrote on the site. Joaquin Castro made Salazar’s Venezuela equivocations worse on Tuesday, the day before she posted her video, by forcing her to vote on — after delaying for some time, she voted against — subpoenas to learn more about the corrupt oil theft. U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar staved off Democrats’ subpoenas seeking details of dealings with Venezuela over an oil deal. But she also held a lengthy conversation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging total transparency over the economic arrangements. A party-line vote closed an otherwise largely bipartisan hearing of the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. There, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat and the panel’s ranking member, moved to issue subpoenas to the State Department and War Department for any agreement between the U.S. and North American Blue Energy Partners, a private oil company run by Venezuelan billionaire Alejandro Betancourt, as well as between that corporate entity and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez. “For nine months, we haven’t received any information about funds regarding Venezuela or how oil money is being made or spent,” Cast[ro] said after the hearing. “Yesterday was the first time the State Department sent anybody over to even brief Congress about us, and that wasn’t even a hearing. It was an informal briefing, and so I thought it’s important to break through all of that noise and get some answers for people.” Salazar held an extended recess of the Subcommittee while she called Rubio. “He is my constituent, and he’s Cuban American just like I am,” she said at the hearing. It is famously difficult to poll Latino voters, especially in a community, like Miami’s, where there’s a degree of diversity built into that Latino community. But whatever else Marc Caputo is, he’s an astute reader of Florida politics. And I suspect the most immediate effect of this uproar will be to exacerbate the same dynamics going on in Texas (where Rove is disavowing the more fascist part of his the party he helped build), which is far closer to flipping blue. Trump has left Latino district members of Congress with no good choice between loyalty to him and distance from his bigotry. And in Salazar’s attempt, and not the first attempt, to find such a path, she likely will create waves well beyond Miami. You wrote: “Democrats need not call our their delusions…” I think you meant “Democrats need not call out their delusions TY South Florida Hispanic populations, particularly Cubans, were granted refugee status and have created neighborhoods where they viewed themselves as “legitimate” but that other Hispanics arriving more recently were not. I often felt that they were among the most delusional of Trump’s “Leopards Eating People’s Faces” voters. We’ll see if that persists or not. One of the things I found most disturbing when I arrived in Florida in the late ’80’s, having come from Upstate New York where the racism possessed a distinctly African flavor to it, is that while the islanders (and Mexicans) all hate each other, they hold a particular animus for Haitians. I can’t imagine why that might be. AIDS probably. There was speculation that Haitians brought AIDS to the US in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. The jury still seems to be out as to whether that is true. Having been on the front of the AIDS epidemic when it started I still feel it’s important to note whenever the blame game arises that wherever any disease “came from” is irrelevant in moral terms. It’s relevant only in epidemiological terms. Having lived in Miami for 25 years, I found most White Cubans to be arrogant to the point of looking down on new arrivals—as in, “we are better than you latecomers.” [Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST (see also your comment at 18-SEP-2026 3:38h): Please use the SAME USERNAME and EMAIL ADDRESS each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Clifton W Hamilton” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established username. You also used a different email address on this comment, likely due to a typo; this could also trigger auto-moderation. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne] OT I haven’t looked at her record, but has Salazar addressed health issues? Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social 6:46 PM · Sep 17, 2026 “On Thursday, Mr. Gorton said that “the success of the polio vaccine was a massive medical fraud” and that widespread vaccination was a “public health disaster.” He received a standing ovation… Mr. Kennedy spoke next, linking arms with the group even as measles cases continue to rise” https://bsky.app/profile/bachynski.bsky.social/post/3mvqqauejnc2w The post leads to NYT article RFK Jr. Assures Vaccine Skeptics They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’ The health secretary spoke at a conference featuring misinformation about vaccines, including a claim that the success of the polio vaccines was a “fraud.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/health/kennedy-vaccines-childrens-health-defense.html [Moderator’s note: link edited, comments about the link deleted. /~Rayne] As this goes on, maybe the last vocal vaccine supporter in the right wing extremist party gets wheeled back and forth to the Senate. Mitch McConnell, who along with John Roberts, is most responsible for this anti vax “leadership” of America. “Julian Castro made Salazar’s Venezuela equivocations worse on Tuesday…” I think you have the wrong Castro brother here. ; ) Joaquin issued the subpoenas. TY I encourage you to watch this interview with Salazar the evening after the 2024 election on the PBS Newshour, starting at about 28:30. In true MAGA fashion, she is wearing an incredibly revealing outfit (pretty shocking on the normally staid Newshour) and is practically salivating over the new President. Those were the days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex_4NZ6cCm8 Ugh. I would watch if I wasn’t already getting a too-frequent dose of her bullshit here in Florida. Because my network ID indicates Florida, Salazar is shoved into all my YouTube ads. Revoltingly plastic person as flexible as Gumby on her positions. @Rayne on September 18, 2026 at 10:17 am Watch YouTube via DuckDuckGo browser – no ads and no trackers. She seems to be wearing the same pearl necklace in the new video but has ditched the cross necklace and the chest; the things that get you a Trump endorsement in the first place. The big glittery cross hanging between her naked breasts….perfect At the start of the video, on the podium in the video it reads “Trump will fix it.” It omits “Trump will break it, and then…, maybe.” Related: Trump and Rubio allies are vying for control of Cuba’s assets if regime falls Washington and Florida insiders are exploring lucrative deals for a post-communist Cuba crushed by ever-increasing US sanctions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/17/trump-marco-rubio-cuba Lee Schlenker, Ed Augustin 17 Sep 2026 Gee, I wonder where the Bahamian island is located in relation to Cuba — the one Junior got married on with Friend of Putin oligarch’s financial support? Ugg. What an absolute cesspool. Little Pipe Cay is the place, 378 miles northeast of Havana Thanks for that. Interesting. The problem is that, legality of the invasion aside, there’s a giant gray area between responsible post-invasion planning versus organized looting. That was a lesson that, hopefully, some people maybe thought about learning after the Iraq invasion. The planning for post-invasion went like, “We’ll be greeted as liberators, they’ll adopt a translated version of the US constitution and promptly elect representatives to sign agreements with Kellogg-Brown-Root (Cheney’s previous company) and Exxon.” The secondary problem is that the Cuban exiles that Rubio is dealing with think that they can reestablish their grandfather’s/great-grandfather’s claims without remembering why their grandfather/great-grandfather fled with Batista in 1959. I wonder how many times Rubio has promised his White Cuban constituents the pearls of Cuba once he has the power to do so? [Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Clifton W Hamilton” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established username. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne] In the picture of her, look at the nose marks, glasses? Reminds me of [Juror #9 has pointed out that the witness across the street had marks on her nose, indicating that she normally wore glasses]. … Juror #8: I only know the woman’s eyesight is in question now! … Juror #2: You can’t send someone off to die on evidence like that! 12 Angry Men https://www.quotes.net/mquote/961675 BarkBarkWoofWoof has a good update as well, channeling the local news stations. It’s interesting that the D opponent is a Miami newscaster who would therefore have good name recognition. Of course she’s running scared and away from her MAGA past. https:// barkbarkwoofwoof.com/2026/09/btyfo-maria-elvira-salazar/ It might be interesting to see if Michael Popok (Legal AF podcast) has something to say, since he’s practicing there in South Florida. I lived in Dade County, now Miami Dade, for 20 years in what is now (after numerous redistricting) Salazars territory. Up until from 1979-1999 Florida had only one R governor and the then district was represented by a very liberal congressman-Dante Fascell. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 seemed to be the turning point from D to R-while the area has frequent hurricanes Andrew did damage I had never seen the extent of and brought down tons of construction crews from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and FL panhandle which included scores of rednecks-the Cubans and New York snowbirds have always been there-I believe the downfall of the area was the settlement of said re-construction crews hastened the political downfall there and my departure from the state. That’s interesting. I’ll posit a second wave injecting a political shift — the run-up to 2008 financial crisis combined with aging Boomers who began to buy real estate for retirement while subprime mortgages and then foreclosure fire sales suppressed prices. Interesting. A suggestion that politics spreads virally? I also wonder how much those hours the nation spent chad-spotting in 2000 affected Florida’s image of itself as GOP territory–once the Rehnquist Court saw fit to decide Bush v. Gore in its own (“don’t use this as precedent!”) interest, a truly watershed moment that saw in a millennium of Republican predation. So it’s all about climate. Is Indian Creek Island sinking into the water yet and are will Florida’s lower class wealthy agree to bail it out? “Deport her”: MAGA turns on Latina GOP rep. who called out Trump https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/deport-her-maga-turns-on-latina-gop-rep-who-called-out-trump/ar-AA2cwrgX?ocid=BingNewsSerp Anthony Sabatini, a MAGA activist and Florida county commissioner, shared the ad and wrote, “Deport her ASAP.” Salazar, a longtime news anchor in Florida, was born in Miami and is a U.S. citizen. (Anthony Sabatini seems nice.) OT but not quite. Since immigration is at issue, noting latest from MM at DHS on the Benny Johnson show, jumping Ilhen Omar yet again on the “married her brother” to get him in the country story — https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/ilhan-omar-married-her-brother-and-could-be-deported-dhs-sec/ar-AA2c3zkG (carrying a NYPost item where you can read it without giving Rupert’s empire a click). Those trashing out that story time and again should get a life. It’s hard being a Republican politician today if you have any integrity and try to distance yourself in any manner from the mob. #tu Saw that spot at least three times last night on MSNBC as part of their reportage. She’s getting a lot of free mileage but I doubt it’s playing to her core constituency via MSNBC. A “flip-flop”, also known as a U-turn or backflip, is a derogatory term for a sudden real or apparent change of policy or opinion by a public official, sometimes while trying to claim that the two positions are consistent with each other. It carries connotations of pandering and hypocrisy ……from Wikipedia.