Democrat Eileen Higgins broke the Democratic Party’s nearly 30-year fast at Miami City Hall this Tuesday (9), defeating Emilio T. González, candidate supported by President Donald Trump, in the race for leadership of the Republican stronghold in the United States.
CNN and the Associated Press news agency declared Higgins’ victory less than an hour after polls closed. After comfortably leading the first round at the beginning of November, the 61-year-old politician obtained nearly 60% of the votes this Tuesday, according to the local press.
Despite a double-digit victory, voter turnout was low, with only 20% of voters registered. This figure, however, does not detract from the symbolic weight of the vote in the city of 487,000 inhabitants.
Typically a local race that attracts little attention elsewhere in the country, this year’s Miami mayoral race has become a test of voter sentiment in Trump’s political backyard — with a large Latino population, the city’s politics have been dominated by Republicans of Cuban descent for much of the past three decades.
Trump, who often spends his weekends at Mar-a-Lago, his luxury resort just over 100 miles from Miami, won Florida’s electoral college votes in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
“Together, we have turned the page on years of chaos and corruption and opened the door to a new era for our city, one defined by ethical and responsible leadership that delivers real results for people,” Higgins said in a statement.
In addition to being the first Democrat to win the race since 1997, when Xavier Suarez, father of current Republican Mayor Francis Suarez, was last elected, Higgins is also the first woman to be elected city leader in its 129-year history.
The victory adds to a streak of electoral triumphs for Democrats over the past month: Most recently, the party won gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as mayoral elections in New York. The Democrats’ string of successful campaigns is being interpreted by analysts as a rejection of Trump’s return to the White House earlier this year.
The party’s tailwinds also diminish Republicans’ chances of maintaining their monopoly on Congress in midterm elections taking place throughout 2026.
The results suggest Republican strength has weakened in the region, where many historically progressive Hispanic voters flocked to Trump’s camp last year, following a national trend that helped him garner 55% of the county’s vote total in the 2024 presidential race.
In the first round of Miami’s mayoral race on November 4, Higgins received 36 percent of the vote and finished in first place by a wide margin, but short of the majority needed to win outright. Gonzalez came in second, with 18 percent.
That set the stage for Tuesday’s runoff. Neither Higgins nor Gonzalez, a 68-year-old former city administrator and retired U.S. Army colonel, has begun running an overtly partisan campaign.
But their confrontation took on national tones after the triumph of the Democrats. On January 17, Trump publicly endorsed Gonzalez on his social media site, Truth Social, in his usual capital letters: “GET OUT AND VOTE FOR EMILIO – HE WILL NEVER DISAPPOINT YOU!” »
The Democratic National Committee responded by throwing its support behind Higgins, as did several prominent Democrats, including U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
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