Daniella Levine Cava faces no competition from the left this summer as the first-term Democrat faces a field of Republican challengers in the election for mayor of Miami-Dade County. But her party’s shrinking base in Miami-Dade makes it harder for Levine Cava to secure the decisive victory she wants in August.
Not a single Democrat has signed on to challenge Levine Cava before Tuesday afternoon’s filing deadline, leaving her to face a largely Republican field of opponents who have raised just a fraction of the nearly $4.9 million the incumbent mayor has raised from donors up to and including March 31, the date of the elections. latest full set of campaign finance reports in the race for all candidates.
The six-person field includes two Republicans who have been elected mayors of small municipalities, two Republican hosts of Spanish-language shows, a former Democrat in battle with the county government, and the owner of a nonpartisan parking service company. connectedness.
Although the race is officially nonpartisan, partisan politics is part of the 2024 campaigns. Levine Cava’s turnout operation shares resources with state Democrats, while her Republican opponents Manny Cid, Shlomo Danzinger, Carlos Garin and Alexander Otaola all posted supportive messages for the former president. Donald Trump on their campaigns’ social media accounts following his criminal conviction in New York.
But partisan loyalty isn’t the only factor in a race where candidates aren’t identified by the parties on the ballot.
Levine Cava chaired the county response to the 2021 Surfside apartment complex collapse, a crisis that earned her generally favorable reviews and significant notoriety in Miami-Dade and beyond.
Cid also runs online advertisements criticizing her for allowing property taxes to rise due to higher property values, even though her last two budgets have included a slight reduction in the property tax rate across the country.
The 2024 mayoral race will end on August 20 if a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in a nonpartisan primary, where all seven candidates will appear on the same ballot. If not, the two top winners will face each other in November – a scenario that would devastate Levine Cava’s fortunes with the uncertainty of a presidential election in which the Democratic candidate appears more vulnerable to a loss than at any time since the 1980s.
“Expectations are such that she is expected to win quite comfortably in August,” said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster in Miami who does not work for the Levine Cava campaign. “If for some reason she doesn’t, that’s the concern. Because anything can happen in November.”
The county terms would make this Levine Cava’s last four-year term as mayor, who also serves as the government’s chief executive for a county of nearly 2.7 million residents, the most populous in Florida.
To avoid a runoff in November, Levine Cava, 68, will have to win a majority of votes in an election formally set Tuesday. Without last-minute entries, the challenger field is:
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Manny Cid, 40, the Republican mayor of Miami Lakes, a city of about 31,000. He has raised about $385,000 through March 31.
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Shlomo Danzinger, 45, the Republican former mayor of Surfside, a town of about 5,500. He entered the race in April and so far has no fundraising report for the first quarter of the year.
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Carlos Garin, 59, is a Spanish-language broadcaster at Radio Mundo and a Republican who is planning a fundraiser for Trump’s birthday later this month. Garin’s 2018 race for the County Commission seat currently held by Eileen Higgins ended with him finishing last, with 5% of the vote. Garin reported raising nearly $9,000 through March 31.
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Alexander Otaola, 45, is the Republican host of a Spanish-language YouTube show “Hola! Ota-ola,” which focuses on politics and news about Cuba. In the 2016 election, his show was credited with increasing Trump’s support among Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade. He used his show to raise campaign money for his first race and has raised about $290,000 as of March 31.
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Miguel Quintero, 45, was a Democrat until earlier this year, when he switched his registration to the Libertarian Party. Quintero, a trapeze artist, has been embroiled in a protracted battle with county regulators over the acrobatics school he runs in his backyard. As of March 31, he has raised about $5,900 for the race.
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Eddy Rojas, 39, is an independent individual who also owns a valet parking company. This is his first political race and he has raised $2,400 as of March 31.
As she seeks re-election, Levine Cava cannot lean on Democrats for the open mayoral seat the way she might have in 2020, when her eight-point victory in November exactly matched President Joe Biden’s seven-point victory over Trump in Miami Dade. Four years ago, Democrats in Miami-Dade had a lead of more than 200,000 voters over Republicans. The latest registration figures show that the difference has fallen to around 65,000 voters.
That margin still leaves Republicans in third place behind independents, but complicates the path to the Aug. 20 victory, which Levine Cava tells supporters is her goal. “Once done in August,” she said at the April 28 opening of a Miami Gardens office that her campaign shares with the Democratic Party of Florida.
In 2016, incumbent Mayor Carlos Gimenez was pushed into a November runoff against fellow Republican Raquel Regalado, then a member of the school board. Gimenez raised $4.5 million to Regalado’s nearly $1 million ahead of the August primary, where the mayor fell short of a majority with 48% of the vote, 16 points ahead of Regalado in the seven-candidate field. Gimenez, now a Republican member of Congress, won a second term as mayor by double digits in the November runoff against Regalado, who is now Miami-Dade commissioner.
Pedro Diaz, a Republican political consultant who is not representing any candidate in the mayoral race, said he thinks Levine Cava faces enough opponents with political constituencies to deny her a majority of votes in August, a concept that is often called ’50-plus-1′. “, which refers to the one vote above 50% that a candidate needs to avoid a runoff.
“It’s obviously a busy race,” he said. “I think there will be a run-off. …I think she’ll be just under 50-plus-1.
