EL TIPO DE CAMBIO DE HOY ES DE: Miami just elected a Democrat as mayor for the first time in nearly 30 years. Eileen Higgins defeated Emilio Gonzalez 59.5% to 40.5% in the Dec. 9 runoff, winning 22,142 votes to his 15,097. On paper, that looks decisive. In reality, it was a landslide built on a depressingly small slice of the electorate.
There are roughly 174,000 registered voters in the City of Miami. In both the November general election and the December runoff, just over 37,000 ballots were cast. That means barely 21% of eligible voters decided the future of a city of nearly half a million people. Of all registered voters, roughly 12.7% chose Higgins and 8.7% chose Gonzalez. Nearly 80% stayed home.
This election was not a sweeping ideological shift across Miami, nor was it driven by Latino voters. The latest precinct data show that Higgins’ margin was built primarily on liberal Black and white voters concentrated in specific neighborhoods, not on broad Hispanic realignment. Latinos did not “swing back left”in this race, nor were they intimidated by Eileen’s exaggerated immigration scare tactics. What decided the outcome was a low-turnout environment where one coalition turned out with discipline and the other largely did not. Effective grassroots strategy and mobilization ultimately determined the results we got.
Democrats treated a “nonpartisan” race like what it really was
Miami’s mayoral race is technically nonpartisan. Politically, everyone knew what it actually was. Higgins ran as a fully aligned Democrat backed by labor unions, progressive organizations and national Party infrastructure. Gonzalez ran as a Republican supported by Donald J. Trump, Florida’s top statewide officials and law-and-order advocates.
Higgins never ran as a neutral administrator. She ran as a movement candidate. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other progressive organizations poured money into advertising and campaigning on the ground for her. Labor unions mobilized their membership. The political machine treated this race like a congressional battleground, not a sleepy municipal contest.
Her messaging saturated Black-majority neighborhoods, white progressive enclaves and liberal strongholds with relentless repetition and coordination. Fear-based framing around immigration enforcement, corruption and control of City Hall was paired with aggressive turnout operations.
On the Republican side, the campaign leaned heavily on high-level endorsements and conservative radio exposure but lacked a full-spectrum ground-level communications operation. Here’s the thing: Endorsements ultimately do not replace field organizing. They do not educate low-information voters. They do not chase ballots. Democrats acted like power was on the line. Too many Republicans acted like endorsements alone would carry the race.
The invisible GOP ground game
Let’s be blunt. The Republican grassroots infrastructure in Miami failed when it was needed most.
In the weeks leading up to both Election Day and the runoff, many voters were scrambling for basic information that should have been impossible to miss: early voting dates, polling locations, voting hours and language-accessible materials. Miami-Dade’s official elections site exists, but no serious campaign relies on voters to independently dig through government webpages to figure out how to vote.
Much of the voter-education material that circulated for Gonzalez – polling reminders, advertisements, graphics, translated content, and even slim but existing social media content – came from independent conservative volunteers and civic-minded groups acting on their own, not from a centralized professional operation.
Meanwhile, Democrats executed a coordinated digital, field and surrogate operation. Community events, voter-education forums and turnout pushes ran simultaneously with paid media. Local and national Democratic leaders flooded social media with urgency and repetition.
On the Republican side, there was no layered bilingual communications strategy built for scale. No disciplined texting program that reached low-propensity conservative voters. No systematic Spanish and English message calendar walking voters through how and when to vote. No sustained presence in historically low-turnout but winnable precincts. That vacuum mattered, and it cost this race.
Voters didn’t know Gonzalez’s platform — and that is unacceptable
One of the most damaging failures of this campaign was how little the average Miami voter actually knew about Emilio Gonzalez’s platform.
Voters heard that he was “Trump-backed.” They heard he was “tough on crime.” But they did not consistently hear what his economic vision was, which, for those of us that knew, that agenda was pretty straightforward and significant – how he would tackle the ever-growing affordability crisis (that has actually worsened under Eileen Higgins’ and Daniella Levine-Cava’s own watch), over-regulation, how he planned to streamline permitting, how he would put Miami families first with local healthcare reform, or how he would confront City Hall corruption in practical terms.
That is a communications collapse. National media exposure matters. Conservative radio matters. But municipal elections are won locally through neighborhoods, churches, small businesses and digital micro-targeting. Gonzalez needed far more sustained Spanish and English local communications beyond radio. He needed daily digital presence. He needed short-form content breaking down his platform in clear, usable terms. Voters needed to understand not just who backed him, but what he would actually do.
Democrats knew Higgins’ message because they heard it constantly. Republicans largely knew Gonzalez’s endorsements, but not his agenda. In a low-turnout race, that imbalance is often decisive.
Early voting is not the enemy
I voted early in person. It was seamless – no lines, no chaos – I was in and out in minutes. That experience underscores a reality Republicans must accept: as long as early voting exists in Florida, it is not optional. It is where elections are increasingly decided before Election Day ever arrives.
Democrats bank votes early with discipline. Republicans still debate whether early voting “feels right.” That argument is obsolete. The scoreboard does not care about sentiment. It counts ballots. In low-turnout elections especially, the side that controls convenience and repetition wins. Democrats mastered both; Republicans did not.
That does not mean that election integrity efforts must not continue, they absolutely should. Clean rolls and secure systems matter. But refusing to compete in early voting while Democrats methodically build a lead for weeks, or in the case of this runoff, days in advance, is not integrity. It is self-sabotage.
We cannot run from our values when they are already winning
Perhaps the most dangerous instinct within local Republican circles right now is the temptation to water down conservative positions to appear less political in municipal races. That instinct is wrong.
Trump won Miami-Dade County because Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and increasingly Puerto Rican voters rejected socialism, weak enforcement and economic stagnation. They did not drift into conservatism accidentally. They moved because Republican policies aligned with freedom, security and opportunity.
Most Latinos in Miami back secure borders, strong policing, low taxes, small-business growth, parental rights and merit-based opportunity. They support those proposals because many of them lived the alternative. Running from Republican values in Miami is not moderation. It is a retreat in a city that already proved those values resonate when they are delivered with clarity and confidence.
What failed in this race was not the substance of Republican policy. What failed was the infrastructure to communicate it at scale.
A local loss with national consequences
This election will not remain local. National Democrats are already pointing to Miami as evidence that their coalition is “rebuilding” in Florida. That narrative, accurate or not, will be used to justify major spending against Republican House and Senate candidates in South Florida heading into the 2026 midterms.
If this mayoral race becomes the operational template Democrats bring to congressional contests and Republicans do not rebuild their turnout machinery immediately, Republican incumbents will face far more hostile terrain.
Democrats now control Miami’s mayor’s office for the first time in a generation. That alone will drive donor confidence, activist energy and national media attention. Republicans cannot afford to dismiss this as an isolated municipal loss.
What must change before 2026
This runoff was not just a candidate loss. It was a structural failure across recruitment, communications, digital strategy, field operations, early-vote execution and bilingual media infrastructure.
Between now and the 2026 midterms, Miami Republicans must operate as if every election is a federal race. That means permanent voter-education operations, not seasonal ones. It means professional bilingual digital campaigns built for working-class voters. It means defining Democrats early before they define themselves. It means embedding early-vote chasing into the DNA of every campaign.
Most of all, it means refusing to dilute conservative values in a city that has already proved those values resonate when they are communicated with strength and discipline.
Miami did not turn blue overnight. Republicans failed to turn voters out. This was not destiny. It was strategy, or the lack of one. The warning is now unmistakable. Whether the Miami GOP acts on it before 2026 will determine whether this runoff becomes a turning point – or the first domino.
Miami just elected a Democrat as mayor for the first time in nearly 30 years. Eileen Higgins defeated Emilio Gonzalez 59.5% to 40.5% in the Dec. 9 runoff, winning 22,142 votes to his 15,097. On paper, that looks decisive. In reality, it was a landslide built on a depressingly small slice of the electorate.
There are roughly 174,000 registered voters in the City of Miami. In both the November general election and the December runoff, just over 37,000 ballots were cast. That means barely 21% of eligible voters decided the future of a city of nearly half a million people. Of all registered voters, roughly 12.7% chose Higgins and 8.7% chose Gonzalez. Nearly 80% stayed home.
This election was not a sweeping ideological shift across Miami, nor was it driven by Latino voters. The latest precinct data show that Higgins’ margin was built primarily on liberal Black and white voters concentrated in specific neighborhoods, not on broad Hispanic realignment. Latinos did not “swing back left”in this race, nor were they intimidated by Eileen’s exaggerated immigration scare tactics. What decided the outcome was a low-turnout environment where one coalition turned out with discipline and the other largely did not. Effective grassroots strategy and mobilization ultimately determined the results we got.
Democrats treated a “nonpartisan” race like what it really was
Miami’s mayoral race is technically nonpartisan. Politically, everyone knew what it actually was. Higgins ran as a fully aligned Democrat backed by labor unions, progressive organizations and national Party infrastructure. Gonzalez ran as a Republican supported by Donald J. Trump, Florida’s top statewide officials and law-and-order advocates.
Higgins never ran as a neutral administrator. She ran as a movement candidate. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other progressive organizations poured money into advertising and campaigning on the ground for her. Labor unions mobilized their membership. The political machine treated this race like a congressional battleground, not a sleepy municipal contest.
Her messaging saturated Black-majority neighborhoods, white progressive enclaves and liberal strongholds with relentless repetition and coordination. Fear-based framing around immigration enforcement, corruption and control of City Hall was paired with aggressive turnout operations.
On the Republican side, the campaign leaned heavily on high-level endorsements and conservative radio exposure but lacked a full-spectrum ground-level communications operation. Here’s the thing: Endorsements ultimately do not replace field organizing. They do not educate low-information voters. They do not chase ballots. Democrats acted like power was on the line. Too many Republicans acted like endorsements alone would carry the race.
The invisible GOP ground game
Let’s be blunt. The Republican grassroots infrastructure in Miami failed when it was needed most.
In the weeks leading up to both Election Day and the runoff, many voters were scrambling for basic information that should have been impossible to miss: early voting dates, polling locations, voting hours and language-accessible materials. Miami-Dade’s official elections site exists, but no serious campaign relies on voters to independently dig through government webpages to figure out how to vote.
Much of the voter-education material that circulated for Gonzalez – polling reminders, advertisements, graphics, translated content, and even slim but existing social media content – came from independent conservative volunteers and civic-minded groups acting on their own, not from a centralized professional operation.
Meanwhile, Democrats executed a coordinated digital, field and surrogate operation. Community events, voter-education forums and turnout pushes ran simultaneously with paid media. Local and national Democratic leaders flooded social media with urgency and repetition.
On the Republican side, there was no layered bilingual communications strategy built for scale. No disciplined texting program that reached low-propensity conservative voters. No systematic Spanish and English message calendar walking voters through how and when to vote. No sustained presence in historically low-turnout but winnable precincts. That vacuum mattered, and it cost this race.
Voters didn’t know Gonzalez’s platform — and that is unacceptable
One of the most damaging failures of this campaign was how little the average Miami voter actually knew about Emilio Gonzalez’s platform.
Voters heard that he was “Trump-backed.” They heard he was “tough on crime.” But they did not consistently hear what his economic vision was, which, for those of us that knew, that agenda was pretty straightforward and significant – how he would tackle the ever-growing affordability crisis (that has actually worsened under Eileen Higgins’ and Daniella Levine-Cava’s own watch), over-regulation, how he planned to streamline permitting, how he would put Miami families first with local healthcare reform, or how he would confront City Hall corruption in practical terms.
That is a communications collapse. National media exposure matters. Conservative radio matters. But municipal elections are won locally through neighborhoods, churches, small businesses and digital micro-targeting. Gonzalez needed far more sustained Spanish and English local communications beyond radio. He needed daily digital presence. He needed short-form content breaking down his platform in clear, usable terms. Voters needed to understand not just who backed him, but what he would actually do.
Democrats knew Higgins’ message because they heard it constantly. Republicans largely knew Gonzalez’s endorsements, but not his agenda. In a low-turnout race, that imbalance is often decisive.
Early voting is not the enemy
I voted early in person. It was seamless – no lines, no chaos – I was in and out in minutes. That experience underscores a reality Republicans must accept: as long as early voting exists in Florida, it is not optional. It is where elections are increasingly decided before Election Day ever arrives.
Democrats bank votes early with discipline. Republicans still debate whether early voting “feels right.” That argument is obsolete. The scoreboard does not care about sentiment. It counts ballots. In low-turnout elections especially, the side that controls convenience and repetition wins. Democrats mastered both; Republicans did not.
That does not mean that election integrity efforts must not continue, they absolutely should. Clean rolls and secure systems matter. But refusing to compete in early voting while Democrats methodically build a lead for weeks, or in the case of this runoff, days in advance, is not integrity. It is self-sabotage.
We cannot run from our values when they are already winning
Perhaps the most dangerous instinct within local Republican circles right now is the temptation to water down conservative positions to appear less political in municipal races. That instinct is wrong.
Trump won Miami-Dade County because Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and increasingly Puerto Rican voters rejected socialism, weak enforcement and economic stagnation. They did not drift into conservatism accidentally. They moved because Republican policies aligned with freedom, security and opportunity.
Most Latinos in Miami back secure borders, strong policing, low taxes, small-business growth, parental rights and merit-based opportunity. They support those proposals because many of them lived the alternative. Running from Republican values in Miami is not moderation. It is a retreat in a city that already proved those values resonate when they are delivered with clarity and confidence.
What failed in this race was not the substance of Republican policy. What failed was the infrastructure to communicate it at scale.
A local loss with national consequences
This election will not remain local. National Democrats are already pointing to Miami as evidence that their coalition is “rebuilding” in Florida. That narrative, accurate or not, will be used to justify major spending against Republican House and Senate candidates in South Florida heading into the 2026 midterms.
If this mayoral race becomes the operational template Democrats bring to congressional contests and Republicans do not rebuild their turnout machinery immediately, Republican incumbents will face far more hostile terrain.
Democrats now control Miami’s mayor’s office for the first time in a generation. That alone will drive donor confidence, activist energy and national media attention. Republicans cannot afford to dismiss this as an isolated municipal loss.
What must change before 2026
This runoff was not just a candidate loss. It was a structural failure across recruitment, communications, digital strategy, field operations, early-vote execution and bilingual media infrastructure.
Between now and the 2026 midterms, Miami Republicans must operate as if every election is a federal race. That means permanent voter-education operations, not seasonal ones. It means professional bilingual digital campaigns built for working-class voters. It means defining Democrats early before they define themselves. It means embedding early-vote chasing into the DNA of every campaign.
Most of all, it means refusing to dilute conservative values in a city that has already proved those values resonate when they are communicated with strength and discipline.
Miami did not turn blue overnight. Republicans failed to turn voters out. This was not destiny. It was strategy, or the lack of one. The warning is now unmistakable. Whether the Miami GOP acts on it before 2026 will determine whether this runoff becomes a turning point – or the first domino.
