Miami-Dade firefighter Omar Blanco is not new to politics. The 15 veteran of the department and president of the International Association of Firefighters local union has campaigned both for and against candidates on 
both sides of the aisle. He has tousled with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and House Speaker Jose Oliva — and won.
Now, Blanco wants to represent not just firefighters but his whole community — in Washington, D.C.
Blanco filed Monday to run for Congress in District 26, where Democrat U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell sits now as the hardest working woman in Congress. Blanco, a moderate Republican, will first have to clear the primary against Irina Vilariño, whose family owns the Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine restaurant chain and who filed in April.
Despite several successes for a freshman — Mucarsel-Powell led the effort to shut down the Trump administration’s concentration camp for immigrant children in Homestead — District 26 could very well flip again. It is watched nationally as one of the most competitive districts. Stretching from Key West through all of Monroe County and into Southwest Miami-Dade — including the largest block of Colombian-American voters in the country — the district has slightly more Democrats than Republicans. Independent voters could make the difference.
Blanco says the recent congressional battle over expanded healthcare coverage for first responders and other victims of the health damages from the 9/11 terrorist attacks made him want to run for office. He was also a lead advocate for additional cancer benefits provided to firefighters in Florida by the state legislature this year, originally held hostage as political payback.
He says he can use that experience in Congress.
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“South Florida needs proactive, problem-solving leaders, not extremist politicians and attention-seeking activists who put themselves before our community,” Blanco said in a statement. “I didn’t just work with one party to get things done. I worked with everyone. And we made a difference.
“Why can’t Washington do the same?”
Blanco first came to Ladra’s attention in 2013 after Gimenez budget cuts 
caused “brown outs” at fire stations around the county and the union — and community — mobilized to fight those and further proposed other cuts, including library closures. He is a moderate Republican with relationships across the aisle, which will serve him well in the general. But, then again, so was former Congressman Carlos Curbelo, who lost to Mucarsel-Powell in 2018.
“We’re wasting a lot of time in partisan battles,” he told Political Cortadito, adding that there was too much of a swing to the left. “We need to focus on taking care of our families and our communities.”
Read related: A real emergency — proposed fire rescue cuts are dangerous
Some think his bipartisan appeal could hurt him in the primary. Vilariño has already issued a statement calling Blanco’s GOP credentials into question.
“Omar Blanco has a very recent and clear record of supporting numerous Democrat candidates with extreme views in the past election cycle,” she said in a press release, but only naming former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum by name.
Ladra also knows that he supported Democrat firefighter David Perez‘s bid 
for State Senate against Manny Diaz, Jr. — but of course because Perez is a firefighter. That was the whole reason the cancer bill was held hostage by Oliva last session. He has also supported a number of Republicans in the past, including Sen. Anitere Flores. former State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla and Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz.
Both Vilariño and Blanco, who are Cuban-American, are expected to make the “all Democrats are socialists” argument to their base voters. Vilariño already has. She also appeared with President Donald Trump at a Hialeah event to promote his tax cut in April 2018.
Blanco, 47, has been married to a public school teacher for 18 years and has two children. His father in law, Lorenzo Palomares Starbuck, ran in the same congressional primary in 2014, losing to Curbelo.
Read related: Local politicos ask Dem debaters to focus on ‘local’ national issues
He is going to have to start raising money right away to catch up.
Vilariño (photographed here) has also already raised $272,400 between her 
campaign account and her political action committee, according to the latest reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission, covering through June. That includes a $40K loan from herself and $2,800 each from serial Republican donors like exile activist funder and container queen Remedios Diaz Oliver, car mogul Gus Machado, developers Sergio Pino and Armando Codina, Republican strategist Ana Carbonell and former Hialeah Mayor, now COO at Academia charter schools, Julio Robaina, who has been raising his ugly head lately.
Mario and Miriam de la Pena — the parents of one of the Cuban-American pilots for Brothers to the Rescue shot down by Castro government MiGs in 1996 — also gave $2,500 each. Rival restaurateur Felipe Vals, owner of Versailles and the La Carretta chain, and the family of Republican Superwoman Marili Cancio, who lost a bid for State Senate last year, each gave $2,000.
Tallahassee consultant Brett Doster, who worked for Jeb Bush‘s presidential campaign, is running her show.
Mucarsel-Powell has raised almost $1 million between her campaign account and her PAC.
Fire union chief runs for Congress in CD26, creates GOP primary added by Ladra on
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