Global Courant
Another man from Florida has submitted papers to enter the 2024 presidential race.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who bills himself as a “unify,, is about to make a long-running bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He is known for attracting technology companies to Florida, reduce crime and capturing the Spanish vote, he says he can help the party chart a positive path forward and appeal to moderates with his focus on climate change. He is the first Hispanic candidate to run in the Republican primary this cycle.
Suarez, a real estate attorney and the son of former Miami mayor Xavier Suarez, was first elected in 2017. Re-elected overwhelmingly in 2021, Suarez serves as president of the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors.
He has become known for attracting technology investors to Miami. He previously met with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and has publicly courted Tesla CEO Elon Musk. He has also been a strong supporter of cryptocurrency, aiming to turn the city into a digital currency hub. He states that Miami is a “prototype“for the country.
Suarez recently came under fire after a Miami Herald Investigation claimed he helped a development company that paid him $10,000 a month to solve licensing issues. The County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust has begun investigating the matter. This was reported by NBC’s South Florida subsidiary. A spokesman for Suarez has vehemently denied the allegations.
He will take on the challenge of taking on two Florida Republicans of much higher profile: former President Donald Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis.
Matthew Isbell, a Florida election consultant, said the mayor’s reluctance to engage in culture war issues could also cost him in the Republican primary.
“Suarez on climate change won’t play well in a primary. It could play well in a general, but if you don’t get past the primary, it doesn’t matter,” Isbell said.
“He’s going to have to appeal to a lot of staunch conservatives who don’t care that the City of Miami got a new development,” Isbell added. “Voters in West Virginia don’t care, voters in Indiana don’t care and, frankly, voters in Key West don’t care.”
Suarez has said he plans to be firmly in the race ahead of the first Republican debate in August. Earlier this spring, he met with major Republican donors, including Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock. That reports CNBC.
Prior to his announcement, Suarez also traveled to battleground states to address voters. He spoke to a crowd at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College shortly after a visit to Iowa.
There he tried to cultivate an image as a personal politician. According to report local media, he shared his personal mobile number on stage and described the move as “radical.” He slammed DeSantis for being too stiff to participate in the retail politics that attract voters.
“He seems to struggle with relationships in general,” Suarez said. “I look people in the eye when I shake hands.”
Suarez reportedly voted for Andrew Gillum, DeSantis’ Democratic opponent, in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Four years later, he cast his vote for DeSantis.
Richard Conley, a presidential scholar at the University of Florida, said Suarez has a compelling story that helps voters identify with him. Still, he said Suarez faces time constraints in building momentum and name recognition when polls show Trump has captured about half of the Republican primary.
“The fundamental dilemma for all of these candidates is, if half of the Republican base is for Trump, how do you stand out?” he said.
Suarez has called on the next president to have a “positive” vision for the future, saying the current candidates brought “a lot of negativity, a lot of division” to voters.
He said he did not vote for Trump in the 2020 election. But he was hesitant to criticize the GOP frontrunner and portray himself as an alternative to Trump’s style without explicitly naming his opponent.
