María Elvira Salazar
María Elvira Salazar is an American journalist, author, and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Florida's 27th congressional district since 2021. She is a Republican assistant whip. Before entering politics, Salazar worked for the Spanish-language network Telemundo for three decades after serving as a news anchor for Miami-based WSBS TV.
She has also worked for CNN Español and Univision.
Salazar was the Republican nominee for Florida's 27th congressional district in 2018, losing to Donna Shalala. In 2020, she defeated Shalala in a rematch. Salazar was re-elected in 2022 and 2024.
Early life and education
Salazar was born in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, the daughter of Cuban exiles. She grew up bilingual, speaking both Spanish and English. She spent part of her childhood in Puerto Rico.Salazar studied at the Deerborne School of Coral Gables and graduated from Miami Dade College. In 1983, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from the University of Miami. In 1995, she received a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Journalism
Salazar's journalism career began in 1983 as a general assignment reporter for Channel 23. In 1984, she served as senior political correspondent for the National News in Spanish television in the U.S. for the Spanish International Network, which later became Univision. In 1988, she began working as a White House and Pentagon correspondent for Univision. In 1991, she became the bureau chief at the Central America division of Univision while covering the Salvadoran Civil War.In 1993, Salazar started working for the Telemundo Network, serving later as senior political correspondent for Telemundo in Cuba. In 1995, she interviewed Fidel Castro for Telemundo at the Cuban mission to the United Nations. She is said to have been the only U.S. Spanish-language television journalist to interview Castro one-on-one.
In 1996, she was one of the two Hispanic journalists to participate in the only political debate in the 50 years after the Cuban revolution between two politically active figures: Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Cuban Assembly, and Jorge Mas Canosa, the founder and president of the Cuban American National Foundation and one of the most famous supporters of the anti-Castro movement.
Salazar worked at Telemundo until 2002, when she continued her career as a journalist with America TV 41 with her own political news show, Maria Elvira Confronta.
In 2006, Raúl Alarcón, owner of Spanish Broadcasting System, purchased WSBS-TV, and the channel is now known as Mega TV. Salazar changed the name of her program to Polos Opuestos under the new owners. She maintained the debate dynamic of her show, but renamed it Maria Elvira Live!
She interviewed several individuals portrayed by actors in the telenovela Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord, including the imprisoned Escobar lieutenant John Jairo Velásquez.
Salazar has said that after her interview with Castro, her second-biggest TV interview was with the former Chilean president, Augusto Pinochet, in 2003. Chilean judge Juan Guzman cited the interview as a legal basis to rule Pinochet "mentally competent to stand trial for human rights violations".
In 2013, Salazar interviewed Cuban dissident and blogger Yoani Sánchez in New York City.
Salazar has interviewed several public figures, including presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Mexican presidents Vicente Fox and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Spanish president José María Aznar, and Colombian presidents Alvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos.
She has appeared as a guest on Fox News television programs such as Fox & Friends, The O'Reilly Factor, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity and The Ingraham Angle, as well as Mornings with Maria on the Fox Business Network and on the conservative network Newsmax.
In 2016, Salazar returned to Mega TV as the anchor of the night newscast.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
2018
The Miami Herald reported in January 2018 that retiring congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican who had represented the 27th congressional district since 1989, had met with Salazar. Ros-Lehtinen said that her district was "totally winnable for the right candidate" from the Republican Party, adding that Salazar "could be the right candidate."In March 2018, Salazar announced her candidacy to represent the district, which includes Miami Beach, most of Miami, Kendall, and parts of coastal south Dade County. The traditionally Republican district, which includes wealthy communities like Miami Beach, Key Biscayne and Coral Gables as well as Little Havana in Miami, had been trending Democratic in recent years.
Salazar's Republican primary opponent, Dade County commissioner Bruno Barreiro, criticized her for her 1995 interview with Fidel Castro, in which she called Castro a "comandante", as well as a 2016 appearance on Fox News where she called Barack Obama's rapprochement with Cuba "noble". Salazar called Barreiro's attack advertising "defamatory", saying, "I have been one of the staunchest, most hardest critics of the Cuban Revolution on the air."
On August 28, 2018, Salazar won the Republican primary by a margin of about 15 points over Barreiro, her leading rival. Former Clinton cabinet member Donna Shalala won the Democratic nomination for the seat. The only debates held during the general election campaign were in Spanish. Shalala does not speak Spanish and used an interpreter, giving Salazar an advantage. Each candidate declined opportunities to debate the other in English due to scheduling conflicts. Although Hillary Clinton had won the district by almost 20 points in 2016 – Clinton's best showing in a Republican-held district – polling as late as a month before Election Day showed Salazar either narrowly ahead or statistically tied with Shalala. Salazar lost to Shalala, who received about 52% of the vote.
2020
In August 2019, Salazar announced her candidacy to run in a rematch against Shalala. She was endorsed by President Donald Trump, won the August 2020 Republican primary, and faced Shalala in the November general election. The Cook Political Report, as well as various polling firms, classified the seat as "Likely Democratic", but Salazar won, 51.4% to 48.6%. She was one of 19 new Republican women elected to the House of Representatives in the 2020 elections. Politico reported that Shalala attributed Salazar's strength to the potency of the socialism attacks among Miami's Cuban population, aided by Shalala calling herself a "pragmatic socialist".Tenure
In late 2020, Salazar was identified as a potential member of the Freedom Force, a group of incoming Republican House members who "say they're fighting against socialism in America". Due to her COVID-19 quarantine, Salazar missed voting on certifying the presidential election results in the House on January 6, 2021. On January 12, the day she was sworn in to Congress, Salazar voted against removing Trump via the 25th Amendment. On January 13, she voted against Trump's second impeachment.On February 4, 2021, Salazar was one of 11 Republicans who voted to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of her House Education and Labor Committee and House Budget Committee assignments in response to controversial statements she had made about school shootings at Parkland and Sandy Hook, among other things. She released a statement on her vote, saying in part, "As I have repeatedly criticized Ilhan Omar for her anti-Semitic comments, I had to hold Marjorie Taylor Greene accountable for her denial of the Parkland Massacre, the Flight 77 crash, and accusing a Jewish family of starting the California wildfires. From now on, I will hold every Democrat to this new standard that they have created."
On May 19, 2021, Salazar joined 34 other Republicans and all Democrats in voting to approve the creation of the January 6 commission.
In June 2022, Business Insider reported that Salazar appeared to have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, a federal transparency and conflict-of-interest law that Salazar had criticized her predecessor Donna Shalala for violating, when she failed to properly disclose an exchange of non-publicly traded shares for publicly traded shares in healthcare company Cano Health worth up to $500,000.
in September 2023, Salazar introduced the Crucial Communism Teaching Act, which passed the house in December, 2024.
Committee assignments
For the 118th Congress:- Committee on Foreign Affairs
- * Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations
- * Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere
- Committee on Small Business
- * Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure
- * Subcommittee on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Workforce Development
Select caucus memberships
- Climate Solutions Caucus
- Congressional America 250 Caucus, co-chair
- Congressional Caucus Against Foreign Corruption and Kleptocracy, co-chair
- Congressional Hispanic Conference
- Flood Resilience Caucus, co-founder
- Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, vice chair
- House Republican Israel Caucus
- Republican Main Street Partnership
- Americans Abroad Caucus
- Republican Governance Group
- Tuberculosis Elimination Caucus, co-chair
- Congressional Blockchain Caucus
- Rare Disease Caucus
Political positions
Abortion
Salazar opposes taxpayer funding for abortion. Salazar has voted to restrict access to the abortion medication mifepristone and has also voted to eliminate resources for active-duty service members seeking reproductive care. She has received an A+ grade from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.Citizenship
Salazar joined Senator Marco Rubio in suggesting that birthright citizenship should be "reviewed", citing abuse of the law by foreign visitors to South Florida. She has said she might be open to offering citizenship to some undocumented immigrants.Donald Trump
Salazar said in 2018 that she wanted to do "whatever makes sense to the community"; of then-President Trump, she said, "The president has used pretty insensitive words. I will talk to him in a nice, respectful way, because I do respect the institution of the presidency."According to the Republican Accountability Project, she voted against his second impeachment, but she supported " an independent commission" to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Economy
In 2021, Salazar voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.Environment
Salazar publicly supported a carbon tax proposal by then-representative Carlos Curbelo, which many other Republicans rejected. One of Salazar's campaign commercials vowed to fight for environmental protection in Congress.Epstein Files
During the discharge-petition effort on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Representative María Elvira Salazar was initially noncommittal, saying she was “still thinking” about how to vote on the petition and did not publicly support the measure to release the Epstein Files.The bill directs the release of certain documents relating to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
She later voted in favor of the measure when the House considered the bill on November 18, 2025 but only after President Trump weighed in.
Local reporting noted that some critics described her change in position as "flip-flopping" after President Trump publicly urged Republicans to support release of the files.
Gun policy
In March 2021, Salazar was one of eight Republicans to join the House majority in passing the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021. She has called herself a "firm believer in the Second Amendment" while also saying that "ways must be found to keep guns out of the reach of those who should never have them, namely children, criminals and the mentally ill". She has endorsed criminal background checks and called for "effectively closing loopholes that allow criminals to have access to firearms." In October 2018, Salazar said she might also back an assault weapons ban. She voted against the Assault Weapons Ban of 2022.In June 2022, Salazar voted to raise the legal age to buy some types of assault rifles from 18 to 21.
Healthcare
Salazar said that she would only support repeal of the Affordable Care Act if a viable alternative were presented. She opposed repeal of the ACA's mandate that health insurers cover preexisting conditions, but called for "free market" policies on health insurance.Immigration
Salazar sponsored the Dignity Act, a comprehensive immigration reform bill. She is an original cosponsor of the American Families United Act.Foreign policy and views on socialism
Salazar is a supporter of Israel. Salazar criticized President Barack Obama's policy of engagement with Cuba, saying that she would support lifting the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba only once there is democracy in Cuba.On January 13, 2023, Salazar reintroduced the Fighting Oppression until the Reign of Castro Ends Act, which "stops President Biden from normalizing relations with Cuba unless freedom and democracy are restored on the island". She said that democratic socialism means "misery, oppression and exile".
Salazar is considered an ally of Argentine president Javier Milei, the sole member of Congress to attend his inauguration, which was done at the invitation of the Argentine government. She argued that Argentina "is going to set the course and point of reference for the rest of Latin America as to the way that a country should be governed".
LGBTQ rights
On February 25, 2021, Salazar voted against the Equality Act, a bill that would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation by amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act to explicitly include new protections. Salazar said the bill "missed the mark by removing religious freedom protections."In 2021, Salazar co-sponsored the Fairness for All Act, the Republican alternative to the Equality Act.
In 2022, Salazar was one of six Republicans to vote for the Global Respect Act, which imposes sanctions on foreign persons responsible for violations of the internationally recognized human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people, and for other purposes.