Herald recommends: In Carlos Gimenez’s Congressional District 29, Asencio is best candidate in Democratic primary | Editorial

All four congressional representatives from Greater Miami are facing primary challengers. Here is our recommendation in the Democratic primary for District 28. The winner will face incumbent U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez.

Congressional District 28

Democratic primary

The race in this newly created Congressional District 28 to challenge U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, Miami-Dade’s former mayor, against two Republican challengers, two Democratic challengers and a write-in candidate.

Gimenez’s campaign did not respond to a Miami Herald Editorial Board request for a candidate interview in the August primary.

The Democrats challenging Gimenez are Robert Asencio, a retired Miami-Dade County Public Schools police captain, who was elected to the Florida House in 2016, but lost his seat two years later. He has since run unsuccessfully for other offices and now seeks a seat in Congress.

Juan Paredes, who works in the computer industry, is running for public office for the first time.

“I’m running because too many people are hurting in our community and I think partisanship in Congress is hurting our country. . . . What we need is statesmanship,” Asencio told the Editorial Board.

Paredes said his political aspirations are rooted in the fact that he grew up in “deep poverty.” He blames economic inequality for many of the district’s, and the country’s, problems.

“I’m running because I am concerned with the privatizing of institutions that make life livable in this country, and I want a more fair society for everyone,” he told the Board.

On the GOP side, Gimenez has attracted one challenger who describes Gimenez as a RINO, a “Republican In Name Only.” Karl “KW” Miller, of Marathon,is a retired CEO who is now a global energy consultant. He is also the chairman of America First, an organization that identifies fellow Republicans who should be challenged for forgetting their Republican values. Miller ran for Congress in 2020 in Palm Beach as a no-party candidate.

In his website, Miller says Gimenez “has openly voted with Nancy Pelosi and the radical leftists in Congress on critical unconstitutional Issues far too many times and continues to support a socialist agenda.”

Miller told the Board that, if elected, he would “help fix America’s global-energy issues, execute his plan to create affordable housing and fix Florida’s dysfunctional water policy.”

The second GOP challenger in the race is Carlos Garin, an actor, who has unsuccessfully run for public office before. The Board was not able to schedule an interview with Garin.

The final candidate in the race is Jeremiah Schaffer, a Florida Keys resident, who is the write-in candidate in the race. He also was not interviewed by the Board.

On the Democratic side, Asencio says the key to surviving in a Republican-controlled Congress is to “work across the aisle,” especially if the Republicans take back the House. “To get things done, you need to build relations, just like I did in the Florida House,” he said.

Paredes said if elected, he would focus on creating affordable housing in the district and in establishing a system for “public funding of elections.”

Both Asencio and Paredes had a command of the issues in the district, with Asencio expounding more traditional Democratic views and Paredes, the more progressive.

For his political experience, the Miami Herald recommends ROBERT ASENCIO in the Democratic primary for Congressional District 28.

NOTE: In Congressional District 28, U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez did not respond to an Editorial Board request for a candidate interview. The Herald will not make a recommendation in the Republican primary.

This story was originally published August 7, 2022 at 11:02 AM.