Veteran journalist and first-time political candidate María Elvira Salazar was defeated at the ballot box and will not replace Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Congress.
She lost the race to democrat Donna Shalala, a former President of the University of Miami from 2001 to 2015. She is also a former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton.
A longtime Spanish-language TV personality Salazar quit her job as a news anchor at MegaTV in January to pursue a career in politics, won the republican nomination in August over experienced politicians. But her TV celebrity status, after 30 years working for Telemundo, CNN en Español and MegaTV was not enough to attract the necessary votes to get her elected to Congress.
In her concession speech, Salazar told the crowd: “The results are not what we expected… what you expected. But thank God we live in a free country, where people can make decisions and vote their hearts with no fear.”