{"id":66590,"date":"2025-12-10T11:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/66590\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T11:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T11:52:14","slug":"democrat-wins-miami-mayoral-race-for-first-time-in-nearly-30-years-marking-major-gop-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/66590\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrat wins Miami mayoral race for first time in nearly 30 years, marking major GOP loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrats have taken control of Miami for the first time<\/a> in nearly 30 years after candidate Eileen Higgins clinched the city\u2019s mayoral election.<\/p>\n

Higgins, 61, beat out Trump-backed Republican Emilio Gonzalez in the Florida city\u2019s runoff Tuesday night and will become the city\u2019s first Democratic mayor since 1998, as well as the city\u2019s first-ever woman mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight, the people of Miami made history,\u201d she said in a statement after the results were announced.<\/p>\n

The victory is an upset for GOP lawmakers across the country, who rallied behind Gonzalez as the election became seen as a test of voter reaction to President Trump\u2019s first year of his second White House term.<\/p>\n

\"MiamiEileen Higgins won Miami\u2019s mayoral election Tuesday night, the first Democratic victory there for nearly 30 years. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Trump himself even threw his weight behind Gonzalez, and was joined by the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Rick Scott, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n

But the Democrat\u2019s victory wasn\u2019t much of a nail-biter. Higgins had led Gonzalez 36% to 19% during the first round of voting amid a crowded field in November, and was the favorite to win this time.<\/p>\n

Still, her triumph in a city with a considerable Cuban population \u2014 a group that\u2019s often swung right in the past \u2014 will be perceived as another ding in the GOP\u2019s armor going into the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n

Far left-winger Zohran Mamdani\u2019s ascension to New York City\u2019s mayorship has also been perceived as a voter answer to Trump, as has a Tennessee US congressional special election that went Republican by far closer margins than had been expected. <\/p>\n

Hispanic voters swinging from right to left have played<\/a> a significant part in such elections \u2014 and the Miami election was perceived by lawmakers across the country as another bellwether for where things might be headed in the new year.<\/p>\n

\"EmilioRepublican Emilio Gonzalez was not favored to win the race, but Republicans across the country were hopeful. AP<\/p>\n

Higgins previously served as Miami-Dade County commissioner and oversaw the Hispanic-heavy neighborhood known as Little Havana.<\/p>\n

Her campaign focused on affordable housing<\/a>, and characterized Republicans as being hostile to immigrants \u2014 especially to the Hispanics who make up a sizable portion of Miami and Florida as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been prouder to be a Democrat,\u201d Higgins told The Associated Press ahead of her historic win. \u201cWe\u2019re living in the state of Florida, where we have people that are building cages for our residents rather than affordable housing for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also made opposing Trump one of the centers of her campaign, and even distributed fliers with pictures of Gonzalez altered to show him wearing a red MAGA hat.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez \u2014 who led President George W. Bush\u2019s US Citizenship and Immigration Services \u2014 proposed eliminating property taxes during his campaign, and expressed support for the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on illegal immigration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrats have taken control of Miami for the first time in nearly 30 years after candidate Eileen Higgins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,416,3640,5546,9,11,10,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-66590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}