Shalala Picks Up Florida House Seat for Democrats

(Bloomberg) -- Democrat Donna Shalala flipped Florida’s 27th Congressional District, a pickup that was widely expected after the retirement of moderate Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a 30-year incumbent in the Miami-area seat, according to projections from NBC and CBS.

Shalala defeated Republican Maria Elvira Salazar, a popular Spanish-language broadcast journalist who managed to narrow the race that Democrats identified as one of their top midterm targets. Shalala, the former president of the University of Miami and secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, made health care a central part of her campaign and criticized her opponent for supporting President Donald Trump.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Edgerton in Washington at aedgerton@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Catherine Dodge

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