Eenie, meenie, miny, moe.
A recent poll suggests Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava could just edge out Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar in 2026. But wait, isn’t she going to run for governor?
Levine Cava, who is termed out in 2028, hasn’t said a peep about either, but people keep imagining her into these races because she’s probably the strongest Democrat in the state, getting re-elected last year against the Trump train that ran over Miami. Her political consultant, Christian Ulvert, is getting bored of telling people she is not running for higher office.
At least not yet.
“She was honored to be re-elected by nearly 60% of Miami-Dade voters and she’s going to do the important work as the mayor,” Ulvert told Political Cortadito.
“She is not going to be on the ballot in 2026.”
Besides, he already has another candidate in the CD-27 race. Which may explain his tweet Monday making it clear: “No! Not happening.”
So, this is just somebody’s ultimate fantasy.
Salazar, who has become increasingly unpopular because of her blatant lies and alignment with Donald Trump‘s cruel immigration policies, which impact her constituency big time, is vulnerable. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has put her on the list of flippable Republican-held seats and they’re desperately searching for their Holy Grail.
The poll by Kissimmee-based Kaplan Strategies — a one-stop shop for “all your political communication needs” — shows La Alcaldesa with a 2 point lead over Salazar. And while that is within the 3-point margin of error, it is still closer than the other candidates who have already announced their candidacy in the Democratic Primary next August (except for Robin Peguero, who announced most recently).
The bigger picture that has local Dems smiling: Salazar doesn’t get more than 45% against anybody.
The survey of 804 likely general election voters in late July shows that “if the election were today,” former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey would get 38%, environmental entrepreneur Richard Lamondin (Ulvert’s guy) would get 34% and accountant Alexander Fornino, a progressive accountant Ladra only heard of through this poll, would get a whopping 35%.
Levine Cava, meanwhile, got 44% and pushed Salazar down from 45 to 42%. The undecideds on that head-to-head were lower, also, which is natural since La Alcaldesa has more name recognition across the whole district, which includes parts of Miami, Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Key Biscayne, Pinecrest, North Bay Village, South Miami, West Miami and several areas in the unincorporated Miami-Dade.
Davey’s tiny lead among the other candidates is probably because he ran in the last Democratic primary, losing to former School Board Member Lucia Baez-Geller (54%-46%),who also was not in the poll. But one would think Davey would do a lot better than just a few points above Fornino and Lamondin, who are basically unknowns.
The poll seems to indicate that voters could support anybody against Salazar, who has coming under fire in recent months for taking credit for extending TPS to some immigrants, when it was a judge in California who did that, defending the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz — she sat on a bed and it was soft! — and her ill-named Dignity Act proposal, which only applies to some immigrants who want want to do the backbreaking, menial jobs nobody else wants without opening up any benefits or giving them any chance to become legal residents or citizens. It’s
Salazar beat Baez-Geller last November by more than 20 points, riding on Trump’s coattails. Since then, two special elections in Florida April 1 show that those coattails are shorter. Republicans still won in districts 1 and 6, but their margins were smaller than Trump’s. Former state CFO Jimmy Patronis beat Democrat Gay Valimont to replace the embarassment that is Matt Gaetz, and gambling executive and former State Sen. Randy Fine beat Democrat Josh Weil for the seat vacated by Mike Waltz when he became Trump’s national security advisor.
Both Valimont and Weil outspent their GOP opponents, but neither have the same name recognition as Levine Cava, who is so well known she is contemplating a statewide race.
A week after the special elections, the DCCC put CD 27 into their “districts in play” list, which maps 35 competitive Republican-held seats they think could be flipped next year.
“This result suggests a potential battleground district heading into 2026,” Kaplan Strategies principal Doug Kaplan wrote in his poll message, according to Florida Politics, which broke the story about the survey Monday.
It’s not entirely unexpected. Levine Cava’s Tallahassee dreams may have been dashed by David Jolly, the former GOP Congressman who turned blue and is tearing across the state to run for governor next year. On Tuesday, Jolly’s campaign announced the endorsements from 60 current and former Democrat electeds, including a ton of La Alcaldesa’s friends: State Rep. Kevin Chamblis, former Senator Dave Aronberg, who ran for state attorney in Palm Bach, and former state reps Steve Geller, who also served as a senator and Broward County mayor, Dan Gelber, who was also Miami Beach mayor, Annie Betancourt, Elaine Bloom, Joe Geller, a former North Bay Village mayor now on the Miami-Dade School Board, Cindy Lerner, who was mayor of Pinecrest, and Juan-Carlos “JC” Planas, who ran for Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections last year but lost.
Aronberg, Gelber, Lerner and Planas all have worked with Ulvert. It might be awkward at the Christmas party if La Alcaldesa jumped in the governor’s race now, after her pals have committed to Jolly.
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