María Elvira Salazar is a journalist and television host of Cuban descent, born on November 1, 1961, in Miami, Florida.
Daughter of Cuban emigrants. She lived in Puerto Rico until she was 16, when she moved to the United States. Once there, she studied at Miami Dade College and at the School of Journalism in Miami (1983). Additionally, she earned a Master's degree in Public Administration in 1995 at Harvard University.
She begins her professional career as a reporter for Channel 23. A year later, she makes the leap to the main newscast of Estación Sin, and the following year, she debuts on Univision.
In 1988, she joined as a correspondent for the first version of CNN in Spanish through Telemundo. As a result of this and due to work demands, in 1991 she moved to El Salvador, where she spent two years as the head of the Central America news bureau for CNN, conducting several reports on the Salvadoran civil war.
In 1993, she joined the staff of Telemundo. In 1995, she interviewed Fidel Castro. Nine years later, in 2002, she left the network. That same year, she began her program María Elvira confronta for channel 41 América TV, where she obtained the last interview granted by Augusto Pinochet. A year later, her program moved to Channel 22. In July 2006, when the network was acquired by businessman Raúl Alarcón and renamed Mega TV, María Elvira took on a new challenge with her program Maria Elvira Live.
In 2012, after a period away from television, she embarked on a new project with the Caracol network of Gente TV. Her program Maria Elvira was only on air for a few months due to the buying and selling of the channel, but it was enough time to feature several interviews with the characters from the telenovela Pablo Escobar: el patrón del mal and with Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez (Popeye), the right-hand man of the notorious drug trafficker.
In March 2013, the blogger Yoani Sánchez grants an interview to Maria Elvira, which she publishes on her personal page— the only interview given to a Latina journalist during Yoani's visit to the United States. In August of that same year, she returns to television with her eponymous program for CNN Latino.
Among the numerous interviews he has conducted are those with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Raúl Castro, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, among others, in addition to the ones previously mentioned.
He has received 5 Emmy Awards for some of his reports.
In March 2018, Salazar announced her candidacy to represent Florida's 27th congressional district following the retirement of Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, but she was defeated by Democrat Donna Shalala.
In August 2020, the journalist and the mayor of Miami-Dade, Carlos Giménez, became Republican candidates for the United States Congress after both won the primary elections in their respective districts. María Elvira dominated the contest in District 27, securing 79.04% of the votes (39,330), compared to nearly 11% for Raymond Molina and 9.99% for Juan Fiol.
In November 2020, he will have a second chance to fight for his seat in the federal Congress when he faces off again against the Democrat Donna Shalala.
