Alian Alejandro Collazo doesn’t seem like a likely candidate for Florida House District 115, which serves the Kendall area. The 29-year-old grew up in the Tampa/St. Pete area, where he claims to own a business. He graduated from a Pinellas County high school. His cell phone still has the 727 area code.
And up until about a month ago, Collazo was registered to vote in Largo, Florida, the fourth largest city in the Tampa Bay Area.
But Collazo apparently moved into the district recently — into the home of State Sen. Alexis Calatayud, who obviously recruited Collazo, an old college pal who once served as a campaign worker and then her chief of staff after she was elected in 2022. Collazo changed his voter’s registration address to the senator’s home address in February.
How desperate do you have to be to have a handpicked pocket vote on the House floor? Letting him move into your house? Is he sleeping on the sofa? Or are they closer than that? It’s none of our business, of course. Unless Collazo is just using her address to qualify and doesn’t really live there.
Collazo filed paperwork on March 11 for the seat, which is open because State Rep. Alina Garcia is running for Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections. Miami-Dade Fire Capt. Omar Blanco, who has been the president of the firefighters union and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2020, was the first to file for the seat in February. Moises Benhabib, a former U.S. State Department foreign affairs officer, filed on Friday. All three are Republicans. No Democrats have filed anything for this seat.
Read related: Miami-Dade Fire Captain Omar Blanco runs for office again, in FL House 115
The address on Collazo’s paperwork is the house owned by Maria Calatayud, according to Miami-Dade property records. Ladra assumes that’s the senator’s mom. It is the same address she lists on her 2022 campaign paperwork (Calatayud has not filed for re-election yet). The 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a pool is in a neighborhood just north of Richmond Heights.
Collazo’s voter’s registration was changed to that address on Southwest 136th Terrace on Feb. 28 from a Pinellas County address on Breeze Drive in Largo, according to a voter history audit requested from and provided by the Miami-Dade Elections Department. It also shows Collazo, who was registered in Pinellas from 2018 until last month, was registered to vote in Miami-Dade from 2016 to 2018, while he was a student at Florida International University.
That’s where he apparently met Calatayud, who was first the campaign manager and then legislative aide to former State Rep. Vince Aloupis. Both she and Collazo served in the FIU student government where he was student body president. She is all over his Facebook page. It almost looks like a crush.
He doesn’t list his chief of staff stint for her Tallahassee office on his LinkedIn page, where he has been a “relationships manager” at Bank of America for six years. But he lists it on Facebook, where he also says he is owner of Horizons Adult Day Care — which is in St. Pete. The owner listed on Florida Division of Corporation records is Frank Suarez, who has the same address on Breeze Drive that Collazo had on his voter’s registration until the other day.
Why didn’t he run for office in Pinellas County? Couldn’t he get elected in Largo? What makes Collazo think he can get elected here? Just because he is handpicked by Calatayud and, perhaps, the GOP establishment?
Tampa transplant candidate for HD 115 is registered to vote at Senator’s home added by Ladra on
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