Last Democrat elected Miami mayor was nearly 30 years agoTrump helped nationalize race by endorsing Republican candiateDemocratic ex-commissioner led first round of voting last monthTrump carried Miami-Dade in 2024, backed by many Hispanics<\/p>\n
Dec 9 (Reuters) – Democrats, flush from a flurry of election victories last month, are favored to win the mayor’s race in Miami for the first time in nearly 30 years, with Tuesday’s runoff vote closely watched as a test of voter mood in President Donald Trump’s stronghold of Florida.<\/p>\n
Eileen Higgins, 61, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner, easily led a crowded field of candidates in last month’s race with 36% of the vote.<\/p>\n
Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n That was short of the majority needed to win outright but well ahead of Republican Emilio Gonzalez, a former Miami city manager and retired U.S. Army colonel, who garnered 20%. Another Democrat, Ken Russell, a former city commissioner, finished in third place with 18%.<\/p>\n A victory for Higgins would be the first Democratic win since 1997, when Xavier Suarez, father of the outgoing incumbent mayor, Francis Suarez, a Republican, was last elected.<\/p>\n It would also make her the first woman and first non-Hispanic candidate elected mayor of Hispanic-majority Miami, a city of roughly 487,000 people that is part of the larger Miami-Dade metropolitan area.<\/p>\n Miami results in November suggested that support for Trump has softened in Miami-Dade County, where many historically left-leaning Hispanic voters moved to Trump’s camp last year – as they did nationally – helping him amass 55% of Miami-Dade’s vote in the 2024 presidential race, according to the Miami Herald.<\/p>\n Neither Higgins nor Gonzalez started out running an overtly partisan campaign, but the result is likely to serve as a year-end barometer of voter sentiment ahead of the 2026 congressional midterm elections.<\/p>\n Their contest took on greater national overtones in the aftermath of Democrats’ decisive triumphs in a slew of off-year elections last month, including the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, New York City’s mayoral election and a redistricting referendum in California.<\/p>\n Then Trump weighed in on November 17 to publicly endorse Gonzalez on Truth Social, urging Miami voters: “GET OUT AND VOTE FOR EMILIO – HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”<\/p>\n “He’s nationalized it, he’s essentially made it a referendum on him in his own backyard, with his own party, with a constituency that he was laying claim to as the new part of the MAGA coalition,” political consultant Mike Madrid told the Herald following Trump’s endorsement of Gonzalez.<\/p>\n Madrid tracks Latino voting trends and also co-founded the Republican anti-Trump Lincoln Project.<\/p>\n The Democratic National Committee has since thrown its support behind Higgins, as have former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona.<\/p>\n Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Edwina Gibbs<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n