(Miami) Democrat Eileen Higgins won Miami’s mayoral race Tuesday, defeating a Republican backed by President Donald Trump. She thus ends nearly three decades of defeats for her party and gives a boost to the Democrats in one of the last electoral battles before the 2026 midterm elections.
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Aged 61, Mme Higgins will be the first woman to lead the city of Miami. She has often spoken out in the predominantly Hispanic city about Donald Trump’s repressive immigration policies, saying she has heard from many people in Miami who are worried about detained family members.
She campaigned as a proud Democrat, although the race was officially nonpartisan, and defeated Donald Trump-backed candidate Emilio Gonzalez, a former city manager, who said he called Mme Higgins to congratulate her.
“We are faced with rhetoric from elected officials that is so dehumanizing and cruel, particularly toward immigrant populations,” said Ms.me Higgins to the Associated Press after his victory speech. “The people of Miami were ready to put an end to this. »
With almost all votes counted Tuesday, Mme Higgins led the Republican by about 19 percentage points.
This local election cannot predict what will happen at the polls next year. But it has attracted the attention of both major national political parties and their leaders.
The victory gives Democrats some momentum heading into a high-stakes midterm election, as the Republican Party seeks to maintain its hold in Florida, including in a majority-Hispanic district in Miami-Dade County. The region has shifted increasingly to the right in recent years, and the city could be home to Donald Trump’s presidential library.
Mme Higgins, who speaks Spanish, represented a fairly conservative district that includes the Cuban neighborhood of Little Havana. When she entered politics in 2018, she chose to introduce herself to voters as “La Gringa,” a term used by Spanish speakers to refer to white Americans, because many people did not know how to pronounce her name.
“It just helps people understand who I am, and you know what? I’m a “gringa”, so what am I going to do, deny it? she told the AP.
Republican concerns grow
Florida Republicans found significant support among voters of Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan descent as they compared some members of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing to politicians in the governments they fled. Donald Trump and other members of the GOP have exploited these sentiments over the past eight years.
However, some local Republicans have grown increasingly frustrated since the November elections, when Democrats scored victories in New Jersey and Virginia, where both victorious gubernatorial candidates performed well with non-white voters.
The election results were seen as a reflection of concerns over rising prices and the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies.
David Jolly, who is running to represent Democrats in Florida’s gubernatorial race next year, said the municipal election is good news for Democrats in what was once a contested state.
“The change is here. It’s sweeping the country and it’s sweeping Florida,” Mr. Jolly observed.
