Robin Peguero, the ‘Democratic capitalist’ seeking to flip a Miami congressional seat

At age 40, Robin Peguero has already served as a homicide prosecutor, participated in the investigation of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and knows Congress inside and out, having worked there for nearly two decades after graduating from Harvard Law School. Now, this son of immigrants has set his sights on wresting one of Miami’s congressional seats from the Republicans. So what is his strategy to win over voters in a city defined by Cuban exiles, and more recently, by Venezuelans? That of a tough-on-crime “Democratic capitalist” with experience in public service and a commitment to strengthening the border and deporting violent criminals, but also a firm believer that the majority of immigrants in the country deserve a path to citizenship.

Peguero is seeking to unseat María Elvira Salazar in Florida Congressional District 27, located within Miami-Dade County, a long-time Democratic stronghold where the shift in the Hispanic vote was key to Donald Trump’s 2024 victory. However, with over 70% of the population of Latino origin and more than half born outside the United States, the White House’s anti-immigrant agenda, coupled with the rising cost of living, has begun to erode support for the Republican president. In early April, the election analysis site The Cook Political Report downgraded its assessment of the district from “solid” Republican to only “likely.” Despite the district’s unique characteristics, Peguero maintains that this constituency also reflects national tensions. “This is ground zero for everything bad that’s happening in the country.”

But before he can appear on the November ballot, Peguero must defeat Elliot Rodriguez, a 69-year-old former local television host, and Lev Parnas, a 54-year-old Ukrainian businessman who was once part of Trump’s inner circle but dropped out after being convicted of fraud; these are the other two candidates running in the Democratic primary on August 18. In that preliminary contest, Peguero has raised the most money, with over $820,000, which he says came directly from small, grassroots donors.

Nationally, Democrats have achieved significant victories in recent months, including the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. They have also won key mayoral races, notably in Miami, where Democrat Eileen Higgins broke a nearly 30-year streak of Republican dominance. They have also flipped 30 seats in state legislatures, including in Texas, Virginia, and Florida, where last month a Democrat won a district encompassing Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence.

District 27, created in 2013, includes six municipalities and key areas such as Little Havana, Coral Gables, and Kendall. From its inception, it was represented by Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen until her retirement in 2018, when Democrat Donna Shalala won the seat, but later lost it to Salazar, who has held the seat since 2020.

This is the hegemony that Peguero wants to break. Born in Rhode Island to an Ecuadorian mother and a Dominican father, but raised in Hialeah, a predominantly Cuban city north of Miami, he decided to enter the race last year after observing the direction the country was taking under Trump, and especially after noticing that Salazar “was not defending the community” against the Administration’s anti-immigrant policies.

Peguero accuses Salazar of maintaining an inconsistent message depending on the audience. “She says something different in Washington than she says here. She says one thing in English and another in Spanish,” he states. He asserts that, in conservative circles, the congresswoman has endorsed more hardline positions, including the idea that immigrants who arrived during the Biden administration should return to their countries of origin, something she doesn’t communicate to her constituents. “She wants to be all things to all people, but that’s impossible,” he adds.

Regarding the government’s immigration agenda, he doesn’t mince words. “The Republican Party wants to deport all Latinos. Not just violent criminals, but also people with no criminal record. The president wants to cancel birthright citizenship and take it away from naturalized citizens. It’s not just the people who are here without papers, it’s all Hispanics who are in danger under this administration,” Peguero says at his residence in Coral Gables.

His immigration discourse is well-articulated and reflects the opinions that polls repeatedly show as being held by the majority of the population. “We have to strengthen the border and deport violent criminals, but the majority of the people who are here, who have no criminal record, who have paid their taxes, who are contributing to the economy, who have started businesses, who even have U.S.-born children, deserve a path to citizenship. But under this president, we’ll never achieve that,” says Peguero, realistically. “What we can do in the meantime is extend TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians, who are in danger if they return to their countries; and process the Cubans who are in limbo under the Cuban Adjustment Act,” he points out.

Peguero criticizes the Dignity immigration bill championed by María Elvira Salazar, which nominally seeks broad immigration relief, but with certain conditions. “It’s a way of exploiting immigrants, making them continue working incredibly hard, paying their taxes, contributing to our economy, but they’ll never receive federal benefits or a path to citizenship.” He adds, “It has no chance of being passed by Congress, and [Salazar] knows it. How can a president who is deporting people from our community, most of whom have no criminal record, sign it?”

The candidate also focuses on the affordability crisis, which is consistently, and even more so now due to the effects of the Iran war, the issue that most concerns voters. Peguero points out that Salazar supported Trump’s mega tax bill, better known as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut funding for Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), while instead giving billions of dollars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As a result, some 93,000 residents of the district, one of the most ACA-dependent in the country, were left without health insurance after the subsidies ended at the end of the year.

Nevertheless, the seat in Florida Congressional District 27 is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in the November elections, which will be seen as a barometer of the continued strength or collapse of Latino support for Trump, and will be key to the future balance of power in Congress. Currently, Republicans control both houses of Congress, with a slim majority in the House. The historical trend of the incumbent party losing seats in midterm elections indicates a high probability that Democrats will at least gain a majority in the House.

This is also an important message for Peguero, who raises the need for political balance in Washington. “Now we have a single party controlling all levels of government, and when that happens, extreme policies emerge. It’s something that those who come from Cuba or Venezuela know well,” he says.

The reference to these countries is no coincidence for a politician who aspires to win the votes of thousands of people originally from there. For the same reason, it is inevitable that he should allude to Washington’s interventions in Caracas and Havana. “We must maintain maximum pressure against the Cuban government and military, but without harming the population,” he points out. “I don’t agree with eliminating remittances, flights, or package deliveries. There are many Cubans in exile who send things to their families and don’t want to return. The Cuban people need more exposure to capitalism, to businesses here to sell things there, to have more exchange of ideas and business, not less,” he argues. He also does not support a military intervention on the island like the one that led to the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in January.

Ultimately, however, Peguero knows that it is his economic message that will be key to convincing voters. Peguero proposes to “overturn the tax breaks and tax giveaways to corporations,” “raise the federal minimum wage,” and “put a stop to the tariffs, which are simply new taxes on the American people.”

Regarding housing, he acknowledges a structural problem. “My father was a teacher in a public school, my mother a mail carrier, and with those salaries they were able to buy a house in Hialeah. Today, I am a lawyer yet I haven’t been able to buy a house,” he notes. “The government needs to help people buy their first home with subsidies and loans, and build affordable housing, because we have so many empty luxury apartments in Brickell,” he underscores.

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