# Michelle Caruso-Cabrera

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera (born February 9, 1969) is an American journalist, board member and former politician. She was CNBC's first Latina anchor at and first Chief International Correspondent regular and is now a CNBC contributor, where she has worked for more than twenty years.
Caruso-Cabrera challenged incumbent representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 2020 Democratic primary for New York's 14th congressional district, which covers portions of the Bronx and Queens. She unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for the 2021 New York City Comptroller election.

## Early life and education

Caruso-Cabrera was born in Dayton, Ohio, and raised in Nashua, New Hampshire. Her mother is a Cuban immigrant and her grandparents were Italian and Cuban immigrants. She graduated from Nashua High School in 1987. She attended Wellesley College ('91) in Massachusetts, paying her tuition in part with the help of a National Merit Scholarship and her earnings from her first summer job as a waitress at Pizza Hut. She obtained a bachelor's degree in Economics. Prior to graduation, she was elected editor of the college newspaper, and starting in 1991 she worked as a stringer for The New York Times, reporting for the education section.

## Career
### Journalism
#### Univision and WTSP

Caruso-Cabrera was a researcher and later a special projects producer for Univision from 1991 to 1994. She then worked as a reporter for WTSP in St. Petersburg, Florida, from 1994 to 1998.

#### CNBC

She joined CNBC in August 1998, working there until January 2019, and became the network's first Hispanic anchor in 2001. She reported from all over the world including places such as Iran, Ukraine, Cuba, Russia and Israel. Caruso-Cabrera has interviewed people such as Pitbull, Lucas Papademos, Juan Manuel Santos and Nayib Bukele.
Caruso-Cabrera co-anchored Power Lunch with Bill Griffeth from 2002 to 2003. She co-hosted the Worldwide Exchange program in 2005-07, along with Christine Tan in Asia and Ross Westgate in Europe. Caruso-Cabrera was promoted to co-presenter of Power Lunch in 2009, and remained in that position until 2013. She rejoined Power Lunch for another stint as co-presenter in 2016.
She left CNBC in September 2018 to join the board of directors of a Dallas, Texas, financial firm. Caruso-Cabrera held that position until February 2020. Caruso-Cabrera is currently a CNBC contributor.

### Book

In 2010, Caruso-Cabrera wrote a book called You Know I'm Right: More Prosperity, Less Government. In it, she called for the elimination of both Social Security and Medicare, which she characterized as "pyramid schemes", and expressed numerous other conservative positions. In addition, she proposed creating personal savings accounts saying they would lead people to work longer, and converting Medicare into a corporate-type 401(k) plan. The book has a foreword by CNBC colleague Larry Kudlow. In 2020, Caruso-Cabrera tweeted, "I support Medicare and social security-its important to take care fo [sic] the most vulnerable. Medicare for all is taking health insurance away from people who have health insurance that they already like."

### Politics

A registered member of the Republican Party through 2015, Caruso-Cabrera switched and registered as a Democrat in 2016.

#### 2020 US House campaign

Caruso-Cabrera filed official paperwork on February 10, 2020, challenging freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic primary for New York's 14th congressional district, which covers portions of the Bronx and Queens. Caruso-Cabrera was endorsed by what Politico called the "traditionally conservative" United States Chamber of Commerce, a business lobbying group that generally backs Republicans. On April 8, her staff reported that Caruso-Cabrera's campaign had raised $1 million, and it was reported that over four dozen finance industry professionals, including private equity executives and investment bankers, had made early donations to Caruso-Cabrera. In the primary she received 11,337 votes, 18.2% of the vote, finishing in second place.
Caruso-Cabrera ran in the general election on the ticket of the Serve America Movement, a party with 349 registered members in New York. She received 2,000 votes, 0.9% of the vote, finishing in third place.

#### 2021 NYC Comptroller campaign

Caruso-Cabrera ran for election in the 2021 New York City Comptroller race. She ran in the Democratic primary against among others NYS Senator Brian Benjamin, entrepreneur and former US Marine Zach Iscol, NYC Councilmember Brad Lander, NYS Senator Kevin Parker, and NYS Assemblymember David Weprin.
She finished 3rd in the 10-person race, making it to the second-to-last round.

## Personal life

As of 2007 she was married to Paulo Lima, and lived in Northern New Jersey. Caruso-Cabrera is now married to second husband Stephen Dizard. The pair married in 2014. After living for several years in Manhattan, in 2019 she moved with her husband to Sunnyside, Queens.

### Awards

Caruso-Cabrera won an Emmy Award for a five-part series on children with AIDS. She received a Broadcast Journalist of the Year (2004) award from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She was named one of the 100 most influential Hispanics by Hispanic magazine.

### Boards and Directorships

She sits on the International Advisory Board of the Instituto Empressa, and serves as President of the Board of Directors of Ballet Hispánico in NYC. She is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, the Economic Club of NY, and the Latino Corporate Directors Association. In 2023, she joined the board of directors of Wendy’s and Del Real Foods.

## Electoral history

2020 New York's 14th congressional district Democratic primary :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Democratic | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (incumbent) | 46,577 | 74.6 |
| | Democratic | Michelle Caruso-Cabrera | 11,337 | 18.2 |
| | Democratic | Badrun Khan | 3,119 | 5.0 |
| | Democratic | Sam Sloan | 1,406 | 2.3 |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 62,439 | 100.0 |
2020 New York's 14th congressional district general election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Democratic | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (incumbent) | 152,661 | 71.6 |
| | Republican | John Cummings | 52,477 | 24.6 |
| | Conservative | John Cummings | 5,963 | 2.8 |
| | Total | John Cummings | 58,440 | 27.4 |
| | SAM | Michelle Caruso-Cabrera | 2,000 | 0.9 |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 213,101 | 100.0 |
| | Democratic hold | Democratic hold | Democratic hold | Democratic hold |
2021 New York City Comptroller Democratic primary election :
| Party | Candidate | Maximum round | Maximum votes | Share in maximum round | Maximum votes First round votesTransfer votes |
| Democratic | Brad Lander | 10 | 340,944 | 51.9% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Corey Johnson | 10 | 315,649 | 48.1% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Michelle Caruso-Cabrera | 9 | 165,543 | 22.2% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Brian Benjamin | 8 | 90,459 | 11.6% | ​​ |
| Democratic | David Weprin | 7 | 75,133 | 8.9% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Kevin Parker | 6 | 55,765 | 6.9% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Reshma Patel | 5 | 51,608 | 6.0% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Zach Iscol | 4 | 29,291 | 3.3% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Alex Pan | 3 | 24,865 | 2.6% | ​​ |
| Democratic | Terri Liftin | 2 | 9,993 | 1.1% | ​​ |
| Write-in | | 1 | 1,791 | 0.2% | ​​ |