Former Jan. 6 committee lawyer running for Congress in Trump district
'It's time for us to write a new story for South Florida — one where hard-working families stop being forced to choose between making rent or seeing a doctor, where small businesses have access to resources and tax relief, and where we no longer get squeezed by corporations and billionaires while politicians like María Elvira Salazar do their bidding,' Peguero said in a statement on Tuesday announcing his candidacy.
'Miami deserves a representative in the House who fights for them. That's the leader I'll be.'
The seat is one of 35 held by House Republicans that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said it plans to target in the 2026 midterms.
Peguero was raised by a mother from Ecuador and a father from the Dominican Republic, and he has a background in law and politics. He spent time working for former Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and was also a former Miami-Dade County homicide prosecutor.
He's currently a criminal law professor at St. Thomas University College of Law.
Peguero is the latest Democrat to enter the race to take on the Florida Republican. Former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey, accountant Alex Fornino and businessman Richard Lamondin have also launched bids to take on Salazar.
The Florida Republican handily won her last election in November against Democrat Lucia Baez-Geller by more than 20 points. President Trump won the district last year by close to 15 points, according to The Downballot.
The Hill has reached out to Salazar's campaign for comment.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
6 minutes ago
- New York Post
Speaker Johnson says it would be 'great service to country' if Ghislaine speaks on Epstein
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said it would be a 'great service to the country' if late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, comes clean and discloses the information she has. Johnson (R-La.) acknowledged he is unsure whether Maxwell can be trusted to tell the truth to the House Oversight Committee, which has subpoenaed her for testimony, and argued that she should still face more than 20 years behind bars. Asked on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday if Maxwell could be trusted, the speaker admitted, 'It's a good question. 4 House Speaker Mike Johnson admits Sunday he has reservations about whether Ghislaine Maxwell can be trusted to be truthful. NBC/Meet the Press 'I hope so,' Johnson said. 'I hope that she would want to come clean. We certainly are interested in knowing everything that she knows. 'She is convicted. She is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking, and so her character is in some question,' he said. But if she wants to come clean now, that would be a great service to the country, and we'd like to know every single bit of information that she has.' A rift among MAGA faithful and President Trump ripped open earlier this month when the Justice Department and FBI concluded that evidence indicated Epstein did not have an 'incriminating client list' and that he had in fact killed himself in prison. 4 Maxwell is accused of helping to procure underage girls and sex-assault victims for late sicko pal financier Jeffrey Epstein. US District Court for the Southe 4 Epstein's former lawyer has said Maxwell 'knows everything' about the sex predator. US District Court for the Southe On Thursday and Friday, US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — President Trump's former defense lawyer — met with Maxwell in Florida for several hours of questioning. Her lawyer has said she is still mulling whether to testify before the Oversight panel or invoke her Fifth Amendment rights. Trump has publicly claimed that he hasn't thought about pardoning her but also stressed, 'I am allowed to do it.' Johnson suggested that he would not be in favor of Maxwell getting presidential clemency. 'If you're asking my opinion, I think 20 years was a pittance. I think she should have a life sentence at least,' Johnson told the show. 'Think of all these unspeakable crimes, and as you noted earlier, probably 1,000 victims. 'It's hard to put into words how evil this was and that she orchestrated it and was a big part of it,' he said. 'I think it is an unforgivable thing. So again, not my decision, but I have great pause about that, as any reasonable person would.' 4 Johnson talks about the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein case to NBC's Kristen Welker. NBC/Meet the Press Johnson dealt with the political reverberations over the MAGA rift on Epstein. Amid the firestorm, Trump publicly lashed out against his base, and Democrats worked to put Johnson on the spot by attempting to force votes compelling the disclosure of the Epstein files. Last Monday, Democrats on the House Rules Committee, a gatekeeper panel that determines the manner in which most pieces of legislation come up for a vote on the House floor, again attempted to put Republicans on the spot over the kerfuffle. The GOP opted to recess the Rules Committee, which effectively froze up the House of Representatives. Johnson decided to send the House home a day early for the August recess as a result. 'What we did do this week is end the chaos in the Rules Committee because the Democrats are trying to use this in a shameless manner for political purposes,' Johnson said Sunday. 'Quite obviously, they hijacked the Rules Committee, and they tried to turn it into an Epstein hearing. 'That's not what the Rules Committee is about.'
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Sen. Ron Wyden talks Epstein files, Paramount-Skydance merger, more
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Senator Ron Wyden — soon to be the longest-serving senator in Oregon history — is back in the state for the summer recess and a series of town halls this weekend. Wyden, the 76-year-old Democrat, has been speaking a lot over the last couple of weeks, from the Epstein files and the continued fallout from the Epstein sex trafficking operation, to concerns about the now-approved merger between Paramount and Skydance, to the early impact of President Trump's 'big beautiful bill.' Sen. Wyden returned to Eye on Northwest Politics to discuss all the goings on in Washington, D.C. and how it affects people in Oregon. Watch the full interview in the videos above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Democrats self-own bragging about inflation shows the left has learned NOTHING
Everybody makes mistakes. Not everyone makes the same mistakes over and over again. Last week, the geniuses in charge of maintaining the Democratic Party's social media picked at a fresh wound — and showed, again, exactly why it lost the 2024 election. The blue team's official X account shared a line chart showing the change in the price of various groceries — meat, dairy, produce, etc. — over time, and asserting that 'prices are higher today than they were on [sic] July 2024.' 'Trump's America,' read the caption. The problem? The last part of the line barely went up. The blue team's official X account, with the caption 'Trump's America,' shared a chart showing the change in the price of various groceries, asserting that 'prices are higher today than they were on [sic] July 2024.' Eric Daugherty, /X And what it actually showed was a massive increase in prices between 2021 and 2024. In other words: over the course of former President Joe Biden's White House tenure. 'I would just advise Democrats not to post about inflation given their track record,' suggested conservative influencer A.G. Hamilton. 'Might save them the embarrassment of having to delete their posts after getting dunked on' — which is exactly what they did. 'This is the gang that couldn't shoot straight!' marveled Fox Business host Stuart Varney. And of course Team Trump got in on the action. The problem with the chart was that it actually showed a massive increase in prices between 2021 and 2024 – when Biden was president. RapidResponse47/X What's notable about the braindead blunder, though, is not the blunder itself. It was that it represented yet another admission, eight and a half months after they surrendered the presidency to Donald Trump for the second time in three election cycles, that the Democrats still haven't made a sincere effort at diagnosing the reasons for their unpopularity — much less addressing them. A new Wall Street Journal poll found that their party continues to suffer as a result — to the point that just 33% of Americans hold a favorable view of it, and 63% view it unfavorably. Both Donald Trump (-7) and the GOP (-11) are also underwater, but may as well be polling as well as ice cream compared to the Democrats. The same holds true of the public's view of various issues; voters still trust the GOP more than the alternative when it comes to the economy, inflation, immigration and foreign policy. If that doesn't wake Democrats up to the provenance of all their political pain, nothing will. The Left has long relied on comforting fallacies to numb the discomfort that accompanies defeat. After 2016, elected Democrats and their media allies insisted that Trump's shocking victory was only possible thanks to Russian meddling. And now, they're laboring under the misimpression that return to power can be attributed to Republicans' superior, but decepting messaging — an almost supernatural ability to compel Americans to believe that which isn't so. If only they could convince the public of the truth, they'd surely prevail. But the cold, hard truth is that it's always been about the substance, stupid — as the unflattering data they so proudly shared last week demonstrates. Kamala Harris was deposited into the dustbin of history because she was the top lieutenant in an administration that had proven a miserable failure long before her boss's implosion last summer. Americans spent the entirety of the Biden years telling pollsters that their lives were demonstrably, palpably worse as a result of historic price hikes. Biden & Co. responded to these pleas for relief by denying the existence of inflation until they couldn't any longer. Then, when they finally did implicitly admit to the effects of the nearly $2 trillion boondoggle they passed in 2021, they slapped the name 'Inflation Reduction Act' on yet another profligate spending bill that every layman in America knew would only compound the problem. There are similar stories to be told about Americans' dissatisfaction with Biden's approach to foreign policy, his abdication of his duty to secure the border, and his championing of a radical social agenda that maintains up is down, left is right, and black is white. Their stubborn refusal to grapple with this incontrovertible truth is also reportedly set to be reflected in an upcoming 2024 autopsy conducted by the DNC. The New York Times reports that it will 'steer clear of the decisions made by the Biden-turned-Harris campaign,' and instead 'focus more on outside groups and super PACs that spent hundreds of millions of dollars aiding the Biden and Harris campaigns through advertising, voter registration drives and turnout efforts.' It's like watching a restaurant serving inedible food invest in new plateware. The gripe has never been with the Democrats' presentation or voters' tastes. It's with the product itself.
