Salazar Leads Rodriguez by 1,116 Votes, a Margin That Puts FL-27 Inside the Recount Line

Florida's 27th Congressional District race is inside the state's automatic recount threshold: the Division of Elections' unofficial results, read at 9:59 a.m. on November 5, 2026, had Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar at 124,474 votes, or 50.23%, and Democrat Eliott Rodriguez at 123,358, or 49.77%, a lead of 1,116 votes out of 247,832 cast. That margin is 0.45% of the votes cast, under the one-half of a percent at which Florida law orders a recount, and no news organization had called the race as of Wednesday evening, November 4, according to WSVN.

The FL-27 recount question is a Miami-Dade County matter with national stakes. Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia said on November 4, 2026 that the margin "currently stands at 0.46%," which "falls within Florida's 0.50% threshold for an automatic machine recount," and that 202 vote-by-mail ballots in the district were still in the signature-curing process, with voters given until 5 p.m. on Thursday, November 5, to fix them. The district covers parts of Miami, Coral Gables, Kendall, Key Biscayne and Pinecrest, according to CBS News Miami, and Salazar has represented it since 2021.

What the count shows, and what is left to count

The Division's candidate list for the November 3 general election shows two qualified candidates in District 27, Salazar for the Republican Party of Florida and Rodriguez for the Florida Democratic Party, so the race is a straight two-way count with no minor candidate to split it. The unofficial totals give Salazar 50.23% and Rodriguez 49.77%.

The two figures for the margin are the same margin measured two ways. The supervisor's 0.46% is the gap between the two percentages; the statute measures a defeat as a share of all votes cast for the office, and 1,116 votes of 247,832 is 0.45%. Either way the race is under the line.

What is still open is small but not nothing. Garcia's office said 202 mail ballots in the district were being cured and that provisional ballots cast during early voting and on Election Day were also under review, CBS News Miami reported. Statewide, the Division's county reporting page showed Miami-Dade with every precinct reported and its mail and early ballots completed, but its provisional ballots and its ten-day overseas mail ballots not yet completed.

Salazar declared victory at her election-night party, telling supporters "We prevailed against all odds," WSVN reported, though the race had not been called. Rodriguez, a former CBS News Miami anchor, called for patience on election night as votes were still being counted, and said voters should let election officials finish the process, including any recount, CBS News Miami reported.

A seat both parties fought for

The race was expected to be close. CBS News Miami recounts that Salazar, a former television journalist born in Miami to Cuban exiles, first won the seat in 2020 by defeating Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala, and that Rodriguez spent 25 years at CBS News Miami before announcing his campaign in March 2026. Immigration and affordability were the campaign's main issues: Rodriguez called for more federal money for affordable and workforce housing and tied Salazar to the administration's immigration enforcement, while Salazar, whom President Donald Trump endorsed, publicly said some of that enforcement had gone too far and pushed for legal status for some long-settled undocumented immigrants. Both candidates won their primaries in August.

How the recount works under Florida law

Section 102.141(7) of the Florida Statutes says that if the unofficial returns show a candidate defeated by one-half of a percent or less of the votes cast for the office, "a recount shall be ordered." CBS News Miami reported that the Secretary of State would order the District 27 recount and that it would not start until at least Saturday, November 7, the day the first unofficial returns are due. The losing candidate can ask in writing that no recount be made.

A machine recount is the first step. If the second set of unofficial returns, due by 3 p.m. on the ninth day after the election in a race where a recount was ordered, shows the margin at one-quarter of a percent or less, section 102.166 requires a manual recount of the overvotes and undervotes. On 247,832 votes, a quarter of a percent is about 620 votes, so the margin would have to shrink by roughly 500 votes from its unofficial level before a hand count began.

What the FL-27 market is saying

The market prices the recount as a procedure rather than a threat to the result. As of 10:03 a.m. on November 5, 2026, Kalshi had the Republican Party at 94% to win the district and at 7% for the Democratic Party, against 95% and 10% on Polymarket. That price means traders treat a 1,116-vote lead entering a machine recount as very likely to hold, which is a judgment about how much a recount and a few hundred cured and provisional ballots can move, not a call of the race.

The price has moved a long way in three days: the Republican Party's best price rose from 59% on Polymarket on November 2, 2026, the evening before the vote, to 94% on Kalshi on November 5, 2026. On November 2 both venues had the Democratic Party at 41%, which means the market went into Election Day treating District 27 as one of Florida's most competitive seats. Polymarket had the Republican Party at 66% on October 23, 2026. The contract has not settled on either venue; both list it as open, which matches a race no news organization has called.

The case against the market's read

The strongest case against a 94% price is that the recount threshold exists because margins this small are not settled until every ballot is counted twice. The 202 cured mail ballots cannot erase a 1,116-vote lead on their own, but they arrive together with provisional ballots the supervisor has not yet totaled, with ten-day overseas ballots and with a machine recount, and a reader who holds this view would say a contract at 94% treats four separate sources of change as if none of them could add up. The market's answer is in the arithmetic: to reach the hand-count line the margin would need to narrow by about 500 votes, and to change the winner by more than 1,100.

What happens next

• 5 p.m. on Thursday, November 5, 2026: the deadline for District 27 voters to cure a vote-by-mail ballot or provide proof for a provisional ballot.

• Noon on Saturday, November 7: Miami-Dade files its first unofficial returns; if the margin is still one-half of a percent or less, a machine recount is ordered.

• 3 p.m. on Thursday, November 12: second unofficial returns are due in any race where a recount was ordered; a margin of one-quarter of a percent or less then requires a manual recount.

• Noon on November 16 and 8 a.m. on November 17: county official returns, then the state's certification.

The Florida 27th District odds page keeps the live board, and the other close Florida House seats are on the elections page.