Eileen Higgins becomes Miami’s first Democratic mayor in 30 years | Miami
Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor of Miami on Tuesday night in a surprising and upset victory that reversed Republican achievements in Florida.
The election of Higgins, 61, a former county commissioner, also contributed to a string of Democratic victories across the country that served to underscore the growing level of resistance to Donald Trump in his second term as president.
Miami-Dade, a county with a significant immigrant population, voted for Trump in historic numbers in 2024, making him the first Republican presidential candidate to win since 1988.
That majority eroded in Tuesday’s runoff elections, when Higgins became the first Democrat to become mayor of the city of Miami in 30 years. The top two candidates emerged ahead after receiving 36% of the vote in last month’s election, besting Republican Emilio González, the former city manager.
Republicans’ determination to retain office in a race that is, at least in theory, nonpartisan was reflected in the number of party heavyweights who lined up to support González. Trump posted two egregious endorsements on Truth Social that misspelled González’s name and aligned her with Trump’s agenda of “securing the borders” and cracking down on “immigrant crime.”
Higgins also focused much of his campaign on immigration. He presented the election to voters as a referendum on the president’s policies, which included supporting Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in building the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant prison and moves to end temporary protected status (TPS) and humanitarian parole programs for various immigrant groups, including Venezuelans, Haitians and Cubans.
Their message resonated in Miami, where 57% of residents are foreign-born, according to the 2024 census.
“HE [Trump] “I have very different perspectives on how we should treat our residents, many of whom are immigrants,” Higgins said. El País in an interview this week.
“That’s the strength of this community. We’re a place of immigrant descent. That’s our uniqueness. That’s what makes us special.”
Higgins will be sworn in as the first Democratic mayor since 1997, when Xavier Suarez, father of outgoing Republican Francis Suarez, was elected. She is also the first woman to lead the city and the first non-Hispanic candidate since the 1990s, Reuters reported.
Nationally, Democrats will see the result as a further strengthening of their position following last month’s hugely successful off-year state and local elections. Before the Miami election, Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin said he saw this as a bellwether.
“He’s definitely running a lot of high-energy efforts there, building a big coalition, bringing together all kinds of people to support him,” he said. he told CBS News. “[It] “If we win this, it will be a big, big win.”
Laura Kelley, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, said Higgins’ victory strengthened the backlash in Florida against Trump’s policies on immigration and especially the economy.
“The messaging for us is very local because each of these issues relates to the daily lives of people living in South Florida,” he said.
“So we’re seeing families torn apart by ICE’s indiscriminate mass deportations. We’re seeing prices continue to rise. We’re seeing the housing and insurance premium affordability crisis continue to mount. So this is all very local, and it matters who the mayor of this city is.”
Kelley said the result was also validation of a stronger grassroots effort among Democrats to help reverse a strong swing for Republicans among registered voters in Florida. He said activists have made more than 300,000 phone calls in support of Higgins in recent weeks.
“The truth is that this was not unexpected,” he said. “Democrats outperformed expectations in November, and we continue to have a voting advantage in this race, even though we don’t know what non-party voters will do.
“When people said at the beginning of the year that the Democratic Party was dead, we decided to rebuild instead of licking our wounds, and that’s what we’re doing. This is just rebuilding and showing our community that we’re not going to let them down.”
Higgins led Republicans by nearly 19 percentage points as of Tuesday evening, according to the Associated Press.
