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Doral, Florida — A Democrat has won the runoff election for Mayor of the City of Miami for the first time in roughly 30 years. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins secured 59 percent of the vote, with turnout at 21 percent, defeating Emilio Gonzalez, a Republican veteran and former City Manager. See: https://miamiindependent.com/emilio-gonzalez-advances-to-runoff-for-miami-city-mayor/.

Higgins is now the second prominent progressive Democrat recently elected to a local executive office in Miami-Dade County. Last year, Daniela Levine Cava won re-election as County Mayor, despite President Trump receiving 55 percent of the county-wide vote in the general election. Trump narrowly lost the City of Miami last year.

Emilio was endorsed by President Trump, as well as by Governor Ron DeSantis, Senators Rick Scott and Ted Cruz, and Congressmen Byron Donalds, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Maria Elvira Salazar. Nevertheless, the loss should be attributed not to the failure of these endorsements, but to the Miami-Dade County Republican Executive Committee’s (REC) inability to execute an effective ground game for local Republican candidates.

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No Precinct Strategy

In the aftermath of the disputed 2020 presidential election, patriots such as Dan Schultz of Arizona have strongly advocated that “every conservative American’s top priority should be active engagement as a precinct committeeman in the Republican Party.” See: www.precinctstrategy.org.

The City of Miami has 139 electoral precincts, yet not a single Republican precinct committeeman. Instead, the Miami-Dade REC is divided into 40 artificially drawn Districts, each with four Committeemen. Only about a dozen of these districts cover the city, and among them, only one Republican District Committeewoman actively participated in electioneering for Emilio.

The Miami-Dade REC provided virtually no ground game. Volunteer Republican walkers—who were not precinct committeemen—handled weekend and after-work canvassing. By contrast, Democrats deployed paid door-to-door workers seven days a week. Republican phone banking was nonexistent apart from a few isolated volunteers.

On Election Day, Republicans fielded only one roving poll watcher across the city’s largest polling locations. Democrats, by contrast, had 49 poll watchers stationed throughout the city, including Laura Kelley, the county Democrat Party Chairwoman, and Juan Carlos Planas, their most recent candidate for Supervisor of Elections.
The New York Post noted that Emilio “lacked a full-spectrum ground-level communications operation.”

Miami-Dade County has 755 electoral precincts serving roughly 1.6 million registered voters. Yet the REC has only around 100 District Committeemen to cover them all. Earlier this year, the REC hosted 400 guests for Sarah Palin and 600 for Senator Ted Cruz, demonstrating that it could accommodate and mobilize larger numbers. It simply has not done so for precinct-level operations, which are essential for voter education, voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts.

Limited Support from Local Republicans

Although Emilio secured endorsements from prominent state and federal Republicans, many local Republican officeholders withheld support during the runoff:

1. Joe Carollo, incumbent City Commissioner and former Mayor, ran unsuccessfully for Mayor but failed to qualify for the runoff. He then refused to endorse Emilio and even campaigned with the Democrat candidate. His conduct reflects a lack of party unity. His brother, Frank Carollo, also a former City Commissioner, lost the runoff to replace Joe on the City Commission. Their political dynasty is now effectively moribund.

2. Alex Díaz de la Portilla, a former state legislator and City Commissioner, likewise ran for Mayor but did not qualify for the runoff. He then disappeared and did not endorse Emilio. His political dynasty is similarly moribund.

3. Incumbent Mayor Francis Suarez also declined to endorse Emilio. His father, former Mayor Xavier Suarez, ran for Mayor as well and failed to qualify for the runoff. One would expect an outgoing Republican Mayor to endorse his potential Republican successor, but that did not occur. Notably, the incumbent Mayor attempted to grant himself and two City Commissioners a one-year extension of their terms without voter approval. Emilio was the only mayoral candidate to oppose this overreach and funded the litigation that forced the city to hold elections as scheduled. This dynasty, too, has become moribund.

4. Congressman Carlos Gimenez declined to join his fellow South Florida Republicans—Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar—in endorsing Emilio. On Election Day, he was in Oslo, Norway, attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring María Corina Machado of Venezuela.

5. Among other local Republican officeholders, only Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia actively supported Emilio. Other county-wide Republican officials, Republican County Commissioners, and Republican state legislators—including Speaker Danny Perez and Representative Juan Carlos Porras—were notably absent. Porras also serves as State Committeeman for the Miami-Dade REC.

Limited Business Support

Local business leaders—nominally Republican—also failed to support Emilio in sufficient numbers. Many donors to the Higgins campaign were Republican developers and businesspeople who perceived her as more favorable to development interests. See: https://miamiindependent.com/emilio-gonzalez-is-citizens-candidate-in-miami-mayoral-race/.

They appear to have been enticed by assurances that a Democratic Mayor would approve their development projects in exchange for support. These business leaders resemble their counterparts in Venezuela and other Latin American countries who backed leftist movements, only to regret it once the left consolidated power. By then, the damage is irreversible.

Local Politics Is Local

The Miami Mayoral runoff attracted national attention because a candidate endorsed by President Trump and other high-profile Republicans lost decisively. This result, however, should not be over-interpreted. The City of Miami accounts for only about 11 percent of Miami-Dade’s registered voters. Last year, Trump narrowly lost the city while winning 55 percent of the county.

This race was not a referendum on Trump. It was a referendum on the Miami-Dade REC’s chronic failure to properly educate voters, register voters and turn out Republican voters in local elections.

The lesson is straightforward: voters will turn out for Trump with little prompting, but they must be mobilized aggressively to vote for other Republicans. Voters trust and are motivated by Trump. That level of trust does not automatically extend to other Republican candidates. That is precisely why sustained precinct work, consistent voter engagement and a functioning local party infrastructure are indispensable.