In Brief:
- A mayoral runoff between a Republican and a Democrat in Miami has drawn lots of national attention.
- Miami-Dade County flipped from blue to red in the last presidential election, as Florida becomes more solidly Republican.
- A Democrat hasn’t won the Miami mayor’s race since the late 1990s.
Democratic success in November’s elections has done a lot to alter the prevailing political narrative. Over the last year, President Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have muscled through nearly every political and legal obstacle in their path. But since November, cracks have begun appearing in the Republican coalition and Democrats have raised expectations for a blue wave in the 2026 midterms.
That dynamic has driven interest in the Miami mayoral runoff next week, one of the last big elections of the year. Miami doesn’t even rank in the top 40 U.S. cities by population, and its electorate – majority-Hispanic with a longstanding conservative streak – is unlike any other big city’s, let alone the country’s. The office of mayor, also, is technically nonpartisan. But the Dec. 9 runoff, between Democrat Eileen Higgins, a Miami-Dade County Commissioner, and Republican Emilio González, a former Miami city manager and Homeland Security appointee under President George W. Bush, is drawing lots of money and attention from both parties. It’s the last chance for Democrats to cement the narrative of a backlash to Trumpism going into 2026, and the last chance for Republicans to undercut it.
Higgins performed best in the November general election, pulling in 36 percent of the vote in a 13-candidate field. González earned about 20 percent, barely edging out former Miami City Commissioner Ken Russell, a Democrat, to set up a Republican vs. Democrat runoff. Trump has endorsed González, and both parties’ national organizations are sending money and campaign volunteers to their respective candidates.
“Miami has become kind of the center of the political universe,” says Kevin Cooper, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party.
The campaigns are turning on a small handful of issues. Some are familiar national themes — Miami had an affordability crisis long before the phrase went viral—and some are unique to the city. Higgins and González have both pitched themselves as reformers in the wake of corruption scandals at the county commission and an expensive settlement for the city of Miami related to a city commissioner’s alleged use of his code enforcement powers to punish political opponents. (That commissioner, Joe Carollo, also ran for mayor; he came in fourth in the November election.)
The mayor’s office is not the most powerful position in Miami. The mayor hires the city manager and can veto legislation, but doesn’t get a vote on the city commission. Outgoing Mayor Francis Suarez has padded the part-time role with more than a dozen side gigs, mostly as a consultant. And turnout in the November election was low, around 21 percent, in a city of 450,000.
Democrats are hopeful, and not just because one of their candidates showed the best result in a city that’s been led by Republican mayors for the last few decades. They also turned out a higher share of their registered voters than Republicans, which they say indicates a spike in enthusiasm among the Democratic electorate. Democrats cast about 44 percent of the ballots in the general election, compared to Republicans’ 30 percent and unaffiliated voters’ 25 percent. If Higgins pulls the same votes she won in the general plus the votes that went to Ken Russell, the other high-profile Democrat, she’ll get a majority. Russell himself has yet to endorse.
Still, González has history on his side. A Democrat hasn’t won a Miami mayoral race since Xavier Suarez, the father of the current mayor, won in the late 1990s. (Xavier Suarez later switched his affiliation to Republican and then independent; he, too, sought re-election to the office in November, coming in sixth.) Miami’s majority-Hispanic population, including the biggest Cuban electorate in the U.S., has tended to support Republicans, who have an 11,000-voter registration edge over Democrats among Hispanics. Trump flipped Miami-Dade County from blue to red last year as Florida continued to become ever more solidly Republican.
Republican leaders stayed out of the general election, which had a number of GOP candidates vying for the mayor’s seat. Now the party is organizing for González, and County GOP chair Cooper is confident. He insists voters are fleeing “liberal hellholes” like New York City, which just elected the socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor, and flocking to the “free state of Florida,” where conservatives have the momentum.
“It’s 82 degrees. The sun is shining,” Cooper says. “We are having a wonderful time.” He hopes he can say that a week from now.
John Jones | For/TNS
Another Former Governor Sails into the Sunset
Jim McGreevey tried to make a comeback. The former New Jersey governor, who resigned amid a sex scandal in 2004, has spent the last few years campaigning to be mayor of Jersey City, a booming city across the Hudson River from Manhattan. He raised a reported $5 million and got the endorsement of lots of powerful Democrats, including Gov. Phil Murphy. But he came in second in the general election last month, and in Tuesday’s runoff he was trounced by James Solomon, a progressive city council member.
It’s rare for governors to make a successful transition to City Hall. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo notably failed in his bid for the New York City mayoralty this year. But it’s not unheard of. Jerry Brown was governor of California, then mayor of Oakland, then governor of California again. Former Delaware Gov. John Carney is now the mayor of Wilmington.
It may be the end of the political line for McGreevey. But Jersey City’s star is on the rise. The state’s second-biggest city, it has grown faster than most over the last decade, with a population just shy of 300,000. It’s also added new housing rapidly in an effort to mitigate the housing crisis gripping the New York area and other big city metros. Despite that, Solomon campaigned in opposition to “big developers,” citing plans to cap rents, stabilize property taxes and invest in deeply subsidized housing.
“The work that we have to do,” he said on election night, “is making Jersey City affordable.”
