Higgins Wins Race In Miami
It took nearly three decades, but Democrats have finally cracked the electoral code in Miami — and in doing so, they’ve made history. On Tuesday, former county commissioner Eileen Higgins defeated Republican Emilio Gonzalez in a fiercely contested mayoral runoff, becoming the first woman ever elected mayor of the city known as the “Gateway to Latin America.”
Though technically a nonpartisan race, the battle for Miami’s top job became yet another high-profile proxy war between the nation’s two dominant parties.
President Donald Trump personally endorsed Gonzalez, emphasizing the race’s significance with a social media blast declaring it “a big and important race!!!” The Republican Party of Florida threw in its weight, pouring in resources to defend a seat they’ve long held — but to no avail.
Instead, it was Democrats, sensing momentum after a string of surprisingly strong showings in red-leaning territory, who claimed the symbolic win. Energized by their recent blowout victories in the 2025 cycle and a notable overperformance in a Tennessee special congressional election just last week, national Democratic leaders homed in on Miami as a potential turning point — and now, they’re celebrating.
“Tonight’s result is yet another warning sign to Republicans,” said DNC Chair Ken Martin, “that voters are fed up with their out-of-touch agenda that is raising costs for working families across the country.”
Higgins ran a campaign rooted in practical governance — affordability, efficiency, and accessibility. With a background in mechanical engineering and international service through the Peace Corps in Belize, she focused her message on delivering city services that work, not culture wars. And it resonated.
Her opponent, Gonzalez — a military veteran and former city manager with deep ties to the GOP establishment — campaigned on eliminating property taxes for primary homes and slowing overdevelopment, but failed to gain enough traction. In the first round of voting on November 4, Higgins led with 36% to Gonzalez’s 19%, setting the stage for a runoff that Democrats approached with focused urgency.
Tuesday’s result doesn’t just mark a long-awaited local victory. It’s a broader political tremor. Florida has, for the last decade, marched steadily to the right. Governor Ron DeSantis’s nearly 20-point win in 2022 and Trump’s 13-point statewide victory last year seemed to close the book on Florida as a battleground. But Miami — always something of an outlier in the Sunshine State — just sent a new message.
Miami’s mayoral race may not decide national policy, but its result carries outsized symbolic weight. A Democratic woman now leads one of the most globally connected cities in the country — a city that was once written off by her party. The political winds in Florida may not have shifted entirely, but in Miami, they just changed direction.