Full Press Release | Ed Vidal and Katrina Vidal are Campaigning for Downtown Doral Republican Executive Committee of Miami-Dade County in District 40
Doral, Florida – – Tuesday, August 6, 2024
Ed and Katrina Vidal have stepped into the political arena to bring much-needed reform to the local Republican Party. Their election will occur on Tuesday, August 20, with two weeks of early voting as part of the Republican primary.
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“Reform is needed to increase ordinary citizens’ participation in party activities such as voter registration drives, door-knocking for candidates, and poll-watching and poll-working for election integrity,” says Ed Vidal, a retired attorney featured on Law 500 GC Powerlist.
Miami-Dade County has approximately 700 precincts for 1,455,000 registered voters, but the REC has at most 160 members, usually around 120. We need a Republican precinct committeeman and woman for each precinct, with real authority and membership in the party. Then, they can work to register voters, walk as door-knockers for candidates during campaigns, and serve as poll workers and poll watchers on election day and early voting. The REC should not be run like a small private club.
When it comes to registered voters, Republicans at around 445,000 trail not only Democrats at 512,000 but also No Party Affiliations at 466,000. The REC makes no effort to increase voter registration so that more voters may participate in general elections and the party primary elections, which are so important now that Republicans have prevailed in the State of Florida.
The REC should also cultivate a group of conservative candidates to challenge Democrats for every county office. For example, there should be a Republican candidate for State Attorney and other county offices where Democrats are running unopposed.
Ed was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, and Katrina in Beaverton, Oregon. Ed’s family brought him to America when he was nine years old, and his family settled in Chicago. They met 50 years ago in the autumn of 1974 on a cafeteria line at The University of Chicago. They were both registered for the same class in the Great Books course on Social Sciences: Political Order and Change. The syllabus included Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke, Montesquieu, Burke, and the Federalist Papers.
The class was made up of around 20 students and was led by a fully tenured professor, so lively discussion was essential, and clear and concise writing was required. They also read Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, so on matters of political economy, they are both “Chicago Boys.”
They married seven years later when Ed graduated from law school. They raised two children in Scarsdale, NY, and today enjoy three grandchildren in Bronxville, NY, and one in Sandy Springs, GA. All the children and grandchildren love to visit Sunny South Florida, so last year, Ed and Katrina moved into a newly built townhouse in Downtown Doral, a family-focused community.
Ed and Katrina have worked on election integrity efforts since arriving in Miami in 2016. Katrina has served as a poll worker for the Supervisor of Elections. Ed has worked as a roving attorney for the poll-watching team organized by local Republican lawyers. He is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association. Before coming to Miami, he worked with them on poll-watching and other election integrity efforts from 2008 to 2016 in Philadelphia, Westchester County, NY, Houston, and Tampa.
Katrina served as Chairwoman of the Scarsdale Republican Committee in New York from 2008 to 2012. During her service, she walked door-to-door for Rob Astorino, the conservative candidate who won an upset victory in 2009 for Westchester County Executive. He upset a three-term Democrat incumbent. She volunteered for the Ted Cruz Senatorial campaign in Houston in 2012 and made over 3,500 phone calls on his behalf. She has walked door-to-door for other conservative candidates in Westchester County, Houston, and Miami-Dade County.
Election Integrity Brigade
Last year, Ed joined a group of conservative, MAGA, and America First Republican activists in forming the Election Integrity Brigade of Miami-Dade County. This grassroots conservative group comprises registered Republicans but remains independent of the Republican party. They work actively to clean up voter rolls, including keeping out non-United States citizens, checking the logic and accuracy of voting machines, lobbying to restrict Vote-By-Mail, and recruiting poll workers and poll-watchers. Katrina serves in this group as a poll worker coordinator.
Independence from the Republican party while remaining registered Republican voters is essential to vigorously pursue all these election integrity efforts. The spirit of liberty and the conservative cause do not reside in the Republican party but in grassroots conservative groups and individuals’ hearts.
Letter from Ed Vidal:
Dear Fellow Republican Voters,
We are Ed & Katrina Vidal, residents of Canarias in Downtown Doral, and candidates for the Republican Executive Committee, District 40, ballot numbers 298 and 303, respectively, in the primary elections on Tuesday, August 20.
We have been politically active for a long time, but after the 2020 presidential election, we saw the need to get involved in stiffening the Republican party’s spine.
As a result of our involvement with the Republican Executive Committee of Miami-Dade County, we have found that it needs reform:
- There are not enough members. The REC should be organized by precincts, of which there are around 700, not 40 districts. We need at least another 122 precinct committeemen in addition to the 120 we usually have.
- The REC must be law-abiding, follow the rules for financial reporting, and report its membership to the Supervisor of Elections. It also needs to follow Robert’s Rules of Order and publish a schedule of its six meetings each year.
- The REC needs to be open and growing. The public must be invited to attend its meetings, and its membership must grow. We need more political activists for poll-watching, voter registration, and door-knocking.
We will work to reform the local Republican party and make it dynamic. This way, it will be an effective instrument to advance the conservative cause against the woke progressive socialists who have taken over the Democrat party.
Sincerely,
Ed & Katrina Vidal
Ballot numbers 298 and 303, respectively.
