Pati Mazzei Joins the Politics Desk

We are thrilled to announce that Patricia Mazzei, the longtime Florida bureau chief, has joined the Politics desk as a correspondent covering the high-stakes midterm elections, the 2028 presidential race, the future of the Republican Party and the ways in which red states like Florida are driving the national political and cultural conversation.

From her perch on the National desk, Pati has regularly demonstrated a keen eye for a good political story, chronicling Florida's evolution from a marquee political battleground to a Republican stronghold and President Trump's popularity among young Cuban voters . She revealed how the Proud Boys gripped the Miami-Dade Republican Party and profiled Gov. Ron DeSantis as he transformed the state into a right-wing policy laboratory and his star rose - and then fell - in the Republican Party.

She has owned her beat fully, writing vivid stories that capture the color (and very often the absurdity ) of Florida and masterful pieces about the collapse of the Surfside condominium tower and the difficult aftermath of the Parkland school shooting.

Reporters will tell you that Pati is a smart and fun collaborator on stories of all sorts and well-sourced and hardworking. Editors will tell you that she's a total pro. Abby Goodnough describes her as " an editor's dream when it comes to how organized, fast and deeply knowledgeable she is about her state." And, she adds, "Pati is also an insightful, warm, funny human."

Pati, who grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, joined The Times in 2017 after a decade at The Miami Herald, where she covered the presidential campaigns of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. She has been known to bring her Havanese to talk to voters at the polls.

-Michael and Felice