Miami-Dade County Commissioner Vicki Lopez flexed her fundraising might in the first quarter of 2026, stacking nearly $589,000 toward keeping her District 5 seat \u2014 more than eight times as much as her lone challenger.<\/p>\n
Between Jan. 1 and March 31, Lopez received about $179,200 through her campaign account<\/a> and another $409,400 through her state-level political committee, Common Sense Government<\/a>.<\/p>\n The haul was the most of any Miami-Dade Commission candidate last quarter.<\/p>\n She also spent about $25,000 on accounting fees, staffing, printing, bank fees, donation-processing fees and a $1,000 contribution to the re-election campaign of Miami-Dade School Board Vice Chair Monica Colucci.<\/p>\n Since being appointed<\/a> to the District 5 seat by her County Commission peers in mid-November, Lopez has amassed $727,000.<\/p>\n With carry-over funds in her PC from prior cycles, she had $840,500 heading into April.<\/p>\n Lopez faces a challenge from fellow Republican Joe Sanchez, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and former Chair of the Miami City Commission who was one of five applicants for the November appointment, including Lopez.<\/p>\n Roughly a month after being passed over, Sanchez filed to challenge Lopez this year.<\/p>\n He raised about $73,000 last quarter, his first full quarter of fundraising, between his campaign account<\/a> and political committee, Law and Order PC<\/a>.<\/p>\n He also spent close to $29,000 on business cards, door hangers, T-shirts, website costs, event expenses, political consulting, social media consulting and advertising, printing, parking and donation-processing fees.<\/p>\n Since his unsuccessful 2024 bid<\/a> for Miami-Dade Sheriff, Sanchez has raised more than $137,000. He had nearly $106,000 left by April 1.<\/p>\n Lopez leaned heavily on real estate contributions last quarter. A third of her PC gains and a quarter of the donations she received through her campaign account came from developers, property managers, investors and other industry interests.<\/p>\n That included $25,000 from Related Group-associated companies and the same sum from Bluenest Development, the current leading developer<\/a> of active residential projects in Miami-Dade suburbs, according to the Miami Herald, which reported that the company collectively gave $190,000<\/a> to Miami-Dade Commission candidates last quarter alone.<\/p>\n Coral Gables-based real estate investor Michael Wohl gave Lopez $25,000 too. Another locally based company, 13th Floor Investments, chipped in $15,000. Developer Swerdlow Group, construction company Lemartec Corp. and the Fisher Island Community Association each gave $10,000.<\/p>\n Other big contributions included $24,000 from Miami-based consulting firm LSN Partners and $10,000 apiece from Ohio-based mining assets company Bioch, New Jersey-based government relations firm Henderson Scott and Fight For Our Future<\/a>, the political committee of Miami-Dade Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, a Democrat.<\/p>\n Sanchez, who credited musician Roberto Torres with contributing $1,000 worth of in-kind aid for event entertainment, relied on a mixture of personal checks and corporate contributions last quarter.<\/p>\n Several law enforcement officers also gave to him, as did donors from the health care industry.<\/p>\n But some of his biggest donations were also from real estate: $10,000 from New York City-based Goldman Properties, $4,800 from 17 companies tied to South Florida real estate investor Ruben Gonzalez and $2,000 from North Miami-based Gateways Corp.<\/p>\n He also received $5,000 from Miami health care company Univida Medical Centers, $3,500 from Miami handyman services company Busy Man and $2,000 from Coconut Creek-based Waste Management Inc. of Florida.<\/p>\n District 5 covers parts of Miami and Miami Beach, including the neighborhoods of Brickell, Downtown Miami, Little Havana, Miami River, Mid Beach, The Roads, Silver Bluff, Shenandoah, South Beach and West Flagler.<\/p>\n Democrat Eileen Higgins represented the district at County Hall between 2018 and November 2025, when she vacated her post<\/a> for a successful \u2014 and historic<\/a> \u2014 run at the Miami mayoralty.<\/p>\n The Miami-Dade Commission is technically nonpartisan, as are its elections, meaning that if no other candidate files for the District 5 race, it will be decided in the Aug. 18 Primary.<\/p>\n The General Election is on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami-Dade County Commissioner Vicki Lopez flexed her fundraising might in the first quarter of 2026, stacking nearly $589,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8184,24952,123,125,124,1064,24953,373,24954,11674],"class_list":{"0":"post-231911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-election-2026","9":"tag-joe-sanchez","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-miami-dade","14":"tag-miami-dade-commission","15":"tag-miami-dade-county","16":"tag-miami-dade-county-commission","17":"tag-vicki-lopez"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}