Politics
11 races to watch in South Florida ahead of the General Election
South Florida’s Primary Election on Tuesday winnowed crowded fields, settled several local contests and produced a General Election slate packed with consequential — and, in some cases, highly competitive — races.
From nationally watched battles for control of Congress to pivotal fights for the Legislature and local government, the area has no shortage of vital contests for voters to decide Nov. 3. We’ve narrowed them to under a dozen matchups most worth watching over the next month and a half in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Doing so wasn’t easy. Several races barely missed the list, including a showdown between Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Mast and Democratic James Martin, a contest for open House District 102 between Democrat Mike Friend and Republican Mery Lopez-Palma, Democratic Rep. Debra Tendrich’s first defense of her House District 89 seat against former Atlantis Mayor Cathy Higgins, and former Rep. Vicki Lopez’s effort to win her appointed seat on the Miami-Dade Commission against challenger Rob Piper.
We think you’ll agree that those who made the list are at least slightly more compelling.
Here are the 11 races in South Florida most worth watching ahead of Election Day, ranked in ascending order by competitiveness, stakes, candidate strength and sheer political intrigue.
11. Miami-Dade School Board District 1: Linda Cothiere vs. Katrina Wilson
North Miami-Dade voters face a consequential choice between two veteran educators with markedly different relationships to charter schools.
Wilson, a former public- and charter-school administrator who resigned from the Miami Gardens City Council to run for county office, led a nonpartisan eight-candidate Primary with 33%. Cothiere, a longtime public-school teacher, advanced with 21%.
Wilson enters the runoff with the endorsement of former District 1 member Steve Gallon, who vacated the seat to run for the County Commission. Her priorities include improving student achievement, school facilities and teacher compensation while remaining receptive to the expansion of charter schools.
Charters have been a major focus of her career; she spent 15 years as principal and CEO of Liberty City Charter School, the first charter in Florida, and now works as a curriculum support specialist for the School District and has helped found the Florida Consortium of Charter Schools.
Cothiere, a Haiti-born former teacher and creator of adult-education programs who now co-hosts a weekly radio show, is campaigning as the stronger defender of traditional neighborhood schools.
She wants to expand access to preschool, increase parental involvement, and provide greater support for classroom teachers.
The winner will help shape District policy as Miami-Dade confronts declining enrollment, voucher expansion, charter competition, school closures, and teacher retention problems.
10. HD 100: Yoni Anijar vs. Michael Ferguson
House District 100 is one of two rare red spots on Broward County’s otherwise deep-blue legislative map, both of which are on this list. And the departure of term-limited Republican Rep. Chip LaMarca leaves it without the protection of an established incumbent.
Anijar, a lawyer and Army Reserve captain, won a four-candidate Republican Primary with nearly 38% of the vote, by which time he’d spent 75% of the $282,000 in outside funds his campaign had raised.
Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent, attorney and former Air Force judge advocate Michael Ferguson, advanced without opposition, using the Primary season to organize and get his name out to voters while raising and spending $315,000, with more cash to spare.
The coastal District stretches from Fort Lauderdale north toward Deerfield Beach and Lighthouse Point. Donald Trump carried it with approximately 53% of the vote in 2024, when LaMarca won reelection with more than 57%.
Those numbers favor Anijar — as does the GOP’s nearly 10,000-voter advantage in the District — but LaMarca’s crossover appeal may not transfer automatically to a first-time candidate who secured the nomination with a plurality in a Midterm Election where the President’s approval rating is at an all-time low.
Ferguson, meanwhile, must demonstrate that Broward’s Democratic strength extends into its more Republican coastal communities.
Both candidates can credibly emphasize their legal and military experience, leaving the campaign to turn largely on property insurance, condominium costs, housing affordability and partisan turnout, as well as whatever surprises inevitably arise.
9. HD 113: Bruno Barreiro vs. Gloria Romero Roses
House District 113 has lacked representation for nearly a year following Republican Vicki Lopez’s departure for the Miami-Dade County Commission. Its eventual Representative will inherit one of South Florida’s most flippable seats.
Barreiro, a former state lawmaker and Miami-Dade Commissioner, won the Republican Primary over two opponents with slightly more than 42%, while Romero Roses, a Democratic activist and small-business owner, won with a 56% share of the vote over one Primary foe.
Barreiro brings decades of elected experience, including roughly 20 years at County Hall and earlier service in the House. Romero Roses is running as a community-oriented alternative with substantial support from the Democratic Party establishment.
She previously ran for Congress.
The District includes Key Biscayne, Virginia Key, PortMiami and portions of Miami and Coral Gables. Once reliably Democratic, it flipped when Lopez won by just 825 votes in 2022. She expanded her margin to 9 percentage points in 2024.
The question is whether Lopez created a durable Republican coalition or a personal one. Barreiro has the recognition to preserve it, but also an extensive political record for Romero Roses to weaponize against him.
Housing, insurance, development and government competence should decide whether HD 113 stays red or returns to Democratic control.
8. Palm Beach County Commission District 6: Sara Baxter vs. Katherine Waldron
Baxter, a Republican with four years of experience on the county dais, took an unusual detour this cycle when she launched a short-lived congressional bid before returning to the District 6 contest at Trump’s urging, gaining the President’s endorsement.
She subsequently defeated one Primary opponent with 59% of the vote to notch her spot on the General ballot alongside Waldron, a Democratic former West Palm Beach Commissioner and state Representative who won a three-candidate Primary with 53%.
Baxter captured the District 6 seat in 2022 with 52.5% of the vote as part of a Republican surge that altered the Commission’s partisan balance. Her platform includes lowering taxes, cutting wasteful government spending and improving county infrastructure.
Waldron brings extensive municipal and legislative experience, and her campaign will undoubtedly highlight Baxter’s Trump alliance while focusing on growth, infrastructure and county services.
District 6 encompasses much of western Palm Beach County, where agricultural preservation, suburban development, water management and road capacity frequently collide. Commissioners wield enormous influence over land-use approvals and infrastructure spending.
Baxter benefits from incumbency and the District’s Republican-leaning western precincts. Waldron benefits from Palm Beach County’s broader Democratic electorate. Recent polling shows she’s strongly positioned to win.
7. SD 38: Alexis Calatayud vs. Richard Lamondin
Calatayud, a Republican, enters the General Election as the odds-on favorite, but she faces a credible and well-funded challenger in Democratic entrepreneur Lamondin.
The incumbent Senator won Senate District 38, which spans a southern portion of Miami-Dade, by approximately 9 points in 2022 on a red wave led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won the District by a 30-point margin.
SD 38 has drifted rightward since. Post-redistricting that year, the District still tilted Democratic, with blue-aligned voters outnumbering their Republican counterparts by nearly 17,000. By the end of last month, the advantage had flipped considerably, with Republicans there holding an almost 20,000-voter edge.
A former Florida Department of Education lobbyist and policy official, Calatayud is the Senate sponsor of the landmark Live Local Act, which proponents tout as helping expand Florida’s affordable housing inventory and which critics deride for preempting local oversight and granting massive allowances to developers.
She’s also backed a statewide Antisemitism Task Force, worked across the aisle on providing stopgap funding for AIDS medication, passed new survivor-inspired protections for domestic violence victims and cast the sole Republican “no” vote in the Senate on the state’s draconian six-week abortion ban.
Lamondin, who owns and operates environmental services company ecofi, abandoned a congressional bid in April to challenge her and quickly garnered Democratic support and endorsements while presenting himself as a business-minded candidate focused on affordability, insurance, public education and development.
He’s banking on the recognition he gained while running for federal office and frustration with GOP dominance in Tallahassee, among other factors, to sway voters his way.
No-party candidate Jeffrey “Doc” Solomon, a former Democrat who previously ran four times for the House, is also in the race. He was unable to say which of his policies differed from Lamondin’s during a Democratic candidate forum in June.
Calatayud, by mid-August, had $1.7 million in her war chest, while Lamondin had about $324,000. Solomon raised and spent about $15,000 in outside funds and had yet to tap $7,000 in self-loans.
SD 38 includes Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and South Miami alongside less affluent areas where housing and insurance costs are especially acute.
6. HD 106: Fabián Basabe vs. Lucia Báez-Geller
Few South Florida contests combine electoral volatility and personal controversy as completely as House District 106.
The Republican incumbent, Basabe, won the coastal Miami-Dade seat by only 240 votes in 2022. He improved in 2024, winning by approximately 4 points.
In the run-up to that election, word had already spread about accusations of sexual impropriety a former aide and an ex-intern lodged against Basabe, but two House investigations finding insufficient evidence to support their claims helped soften the surrounding scrutiny.
That changed this year, when a Leon County jury found him liable for sexual harassment, battery and defamation of the two men, awarding the plaintiffs $450,000 in damages.
Basabe — who, against common wisdom and the Judge’s advice, represented himself in the case — disputes the outcome and has sought a new trial or reduced award, but the verdict has prompted renewed calls for his resignation.
Enter Báez-Geller, a former educator and Miami-Dade School Board member who emerged from a Democratic Primary this week with 57% of the vote. She challenged Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar last cycle, and while she was ultimately unsuccessful, losing by double digits, she gained experience raising money — $650,000 by Election Day — and campaigning before a larger electorate.
HD 106 includes Miami Beach and several northeastern coastal communities where condo regulation, flooding, insurance and housing costs dominate local politics.
Báez-Geller will argue the District needs different policies and better standards of conduct, and she — or entities supporting her — will likely weaponize footage from Basabe’s trial to draw attention to his alleged misdeeds.
Basabe will emphasize his legislative record and dispute the verdict, which he contends resulted from judicial bias. But no incumbent on this list enters the General Election with more combustible baggage.
5. CD 27: María Elvira Salazar vs. Eliott Rodriguez
The race for Florida’s 27th Congressional District, which features two of Miami’s most recognizable former TV journalists, is shaping up to be Salazar’s toughest reelection campaign.
Salazar, who was first elected to Congress in 2020 by less than 3 points, has successfully batted back Democratic challengers in cycles since, toppling Democrat Annette Taddeo (now running for CFO) by nearly 15 points in 2022, then Báez-Geller by a whopping 21 points two years later.
Now Salazar faces Rodriguez, a fellow Cuban American who, like her, spent decades appearing in South Florida homes as a trusted, award-winning news anchor.
The underlying numbers favor Salazar. Trump carried CD 27 by roughly 14.5 points in 2024, and Salazar has steadily expanded her margins since narrowly unseating Donna Shalala the same year Joe Biden won the District by 3 points.
She also begins the General Election with a multimillion-dollar financial advantage, having raised $2 million through the end of July, compared to the $661,000 Rodriguez raised after entering the contest in March.
Still, his familiarity to voters, moderate messaging on affordability and insurance, and criticism of South Florida’s Republican delegation over immigration policy will help him compete for votes from Cuban Americans and independents who have increasingly favored Republicans.
Salazar has supported much of the Republican agenda while distancing herself from some Trump immigration stances and promoting bipartisan legalization proposals, including her own Dignity Act.
Rodriguez will argue that her independence is more rhetorical than real.
And while Salazar is favored to win, Rodriguez’s recognition and communication skills give Democrats something they have often lacked in CD 27: a challenger who begins the campaign broadly known to the electorate for reasons similar to what got Salazar the nod six years ago.
4. HD 101: Hillary Cassel vs. Todd Delmay
House District 101 presents a rare experiment: an incumbent elected as a Democrat asking voters to return her to Tallahassee as a Republican.
Cassel switched parties in December 2024, mere weeks after winning reelection without opposition. She cited what she called the Democratic Party’s “failure to unequivocally support Israel and its willingness to tolerate extreme progressive voices that justify or condone acts of terrorism.” Cassel is Jewish.
Delmay, her Democratic challenger, is hardly a stranger. Cassel defeated the longtime LGBTQ-rights advocate by 6 points in the 2022 Democratic Primary. He’s since assembled support from organized labor, equality groups and prominent Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a staunch Israel ally.
The Broward District is well-suited to such a contest. Biden carried it in 2020, and Trump narrowly won it four years later. That movement gives Cassel a plausible GOP path while leaving substantial Democratic runway for Delmay.
Cassel has argued that changing parties increased her Capitol clout and ability to deliver results and that her positions matter more than her label. Delmay has portrayed the switch as a breach of trust by someone elected with Democratic votes and criticized her support of Republican measures like Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Insurance, affordability, abortion, education and LGBTQ rights will matter, but one question overshadows them: Will voters see Cassel’s switch as principled independence or political betrayal?
3. HD 87: Emily Gregory vs. Jon Maples
The March Special Election in House District 87 produced one of the year’s most surprising Democratic victories. In November, voters there will decide whether that result represents a durable change or a low-turnout anomaly.
Gregory defeated Maples, a Republican, by only 797 votes, 51% to 49%, flipping a seat carried by 19 points in 2024 by former Republican Rep. Mike Caruso, who was arrested this week on charges of child sexual abuse.
Trump won the District two years ago by roughly 11 points and endorsed Maples in the Special Election. The District’s inclusion of Mar-a-Lago gave Gregory’s victory immediate national symbolism and drew international headlines.
Maples, who quickly filed to run again for HD 87, earned his rematch by crushing Jonathan Rubin with 77% in the Republican Primary. A financial adviser and former Lake Clarke Shores Council member, he can argue that March exposed a failure of turnout and organization that Republicans can correct.
Gregory, a public-health professional and small-business owner, ran on priorities including education, healthcare, housing and the cost of living. She must now defend a sparse legislative record that includes Special Session votes, but no personally sponsored bills, rather than campaign solely as an outsider.
November’s voter turnout will be larger and more partisan, which should help Maples. Gregory, however, has already demonstrated that she can attract enough independents and crossover Republicans to win.
If Gregory prevails again, Democrats can credibly call HD 87 a battleground. If Maples retakes it, Republicans will dismiss March as an aberration.
2. CD 22: Casey Askar vs. Pia Dandiya
Florida’s new 22nd Congressional District is an open, cross-peninsula creation stretching from Broward and Palm Beach toward the Gulf Coast across Collier and Hendry counties. Its unusual geography, lack of an incumbent and national implications make it one of Florida’s most important elections.
Askar topped a seven-candidate Republican Primary field with 31% of the vote. He is an Iraqi-born Christian whose family fled persecution and a Marine Corps veteran who built businesses spanning franchising, real estate, construction and energy.
This is his second run at Congress, following an unsuccessful 2020 bid, and he’s proven in both that cycle and this one — when he lent his campaign $2.5 million through July 29 — that he can invest substantial personal resources.
Dandiya won her Primary with approximately 69%, defeating one fellow Democrat. Born and raised in Palm Beach County, she began as a public school teacher and principal, later served as a White House Fellow at the Department of Education, and recently directed public-sector initiatives for Apple.
This is her first run at public office.
CD 22 voted for Trump by approximately 10.5 points in 2024, but national forecasters still consider the open seat competitive.
Askar has emphasized tax reform, reduced government spending, increased domestic energy production and border security. Dandiya has focused on affordability, education, abortion rights and tackling government corruption.
Askar must unify Republicans after winning with a plurality, while Dandiya must broaden her name ID across an enormous District while generating Democratic turnout on difficult terrain. She appears to be doing well in that regard, having raised nearly $2.3 million through more than 11,000 individual donors.
The Republican advantage is indeed real, but the absence of an incumbent and signs of a blue wave leave room for movement from the left. Accordingly, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) both list CD 22 as a battleground District.
1. CD 25: Jared Moskowitz vs. Scott Singer
No South Florida election this year better combines national stakes and genuine uncertainty than this clash between two well-funded, politically established candidates with some biographical and policy overlaps but starkly different political leanings.
Florida’s new congressional map placed Moskowitz, a Democrat, in a dramatically different District running through coastal portions of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade. It’s a District Trump would have carried by approximately 9 points in 2024, and it’s a prime Republican pickup opportunity now.
Moskowitz defeated Democratic Socialist Oliver Larkin in his Primary with approximately 64%, taking arrows from the challenger for his support for Israel and refusal to mount a debate stage ahead of Election Day.
A former state lawmaker and County Commissioner who led emergency management operations under DeSantis during the pandemic, Moskowitz has cultivated a centrist, combative persona on Capitol Hill while remaining willing to work with Republicans.
Singer, a lawyer, won a five-candidate Republican Primary with approximately 31%. His tenure as Boca Raton Mayor gives him a valuable base in one of the District’s most prominent municipalities, and his personal history in both Broward and Miami-Dade lends authenticity to his claim that he’s best suited to represent CD 25.
Both candidates are Jewish lawyers who were born in South Florida and entered politics through local service. Moskowitz, born in Broward, was first elected to the Parkland City Commission in 2006, interned under Al Gore and served as a delegate for Barack Obama. Singer, born in Miami Beach, won a seat on the Boca Raton Council in 2014, captured the mayoralty four years later and was overwhelmingly re-elected twice.
Neither nominee emerged without vulnerabilities. Larkin still captured more than one-third of the Democratic vote, while Singer won less than one-third of the Republican vote. Both must reunify their parties while pursuing independents.
Singer wasted little time attacking Moskowitz after the Primary, arguing that the Democrat has been far less centrist in Congress than his political branding suggests. He accused Moskowitz of voting with Democratic leaders for higher taxes and permissive immigration policies while contrasting that record with his own work in Boca Raton on taxes, public safety and green space. Singer also stressed that Moskowitz is coming from “outside the District,” noting that the new CD 25 map placed Moskowitz’s home in CD 22, while Singer lives inside the District’s bounds.
Moskowitz and national Democrats are preparing to portray Singer as a dependable Trump vote rather than the pragmatic municipal leader he describes himself as. Singer’s own campaign says he will work with Trump to advance the “America First” agenda, while the DCCC has previewed attacks on his support for Trump’s economic policies and his backing of the “One Boca” redevelopment plan that 75% of Boca Raton voters rejected.
Moskowitz will also likely counter Singer’s accusations of hyper-partisanship by pointing to his cross-aisle work, occasional breaks with Democratic leaders, and his decision to become the first Democrat to join the Congressional DOGE Caucus, which he later called “dead” after months with no meetings.
Can Singer translate the District’s Republican presidential bent into a congressional victory, or can Moskowitz leverage his incumbency while persuading enough independents and crossover voters that his bipartisan-minded approach fits the District? Will Libertarian Peter Jassenoff’s candidacy in the District siphon off enough votes to swing the outcome?
Those and many other questions await answers.
As with CD 22, both the NRCC and DCCC have targeted CD 25 for investment, and the Cook Political Report rates the contest a toss-up, ensuring the race will command national money and attention through Election Day.
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