Miami mayor Francis Suarez has thrown his hat into the ring for the GOP presidential primary. Till a few days ago, few people outside of Florida had heard of him, but now there seems to be a continuous buzz about him and he seems to have become the great hope of Republicans who are not staunchly committed to Trump.
Born in 1977, Suarez already has a political pedigree. He is the son of Rita and Xavier Suarez, a two-time Miami mayor. His aunt, Lala, is the mother of U.S. Congressman Alex Mooney from West Virginia.
Suarez has been serving as the mayor of Miami since 2017 and has been re-elected twice. He is known for his innovative approach to governance and his focus on technology and innovation. He has also been a strong advocate for climate change action and has been working to make Miami a more resilient city. As far as these positions go, he truly is the Anti-Trump candidate.
Francis Suarez is also the first Hispanic candidate to enter the GOP primaries and has been a longtime critic of the race’s two frontrunners: former President Donald Trump and his own governor Ron DeSantis. His success with diverse constituencies, especially Latinos, should make Republicans giddy. He has shown an ability to capture large chunks of Latino voters, leveraging pro-business, anti-socialist, and conservative messages.
He also appeals to younger voters, an especially crucial segment of the voter base that is disaffected with staid politics and entrenched old leaders like both Trump and Biden. Those looking for fresh blood see Suarez as a viable choice.
According to an article from the New York Post, Suarez is popular among young people in Miami due to his “crypto-bro, high-spending, hard-partying, tech-savvy, venture capital constituency”. Another article from Vanity Fair describes Suarez as young, good-looking, energetic and speaks in generational terms.
His vision for a “next-generation” GOP includes younger leaders, “generational” solutions, and a more diverse cast. He believes that the Republican Party needs to evolve in order to remain relevant in today’s society, a question that is at the center of the GOP debate in its internecine conflict.
The Miami mayor is also a cryptocurrency-friendly politician who has promoted the development of his city as a cryptocurrency hub. In 2021, he was included in Fortune magazine’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” list.
Ecologically-minded, as the current mayor of Miami, he has overseen a $400 million municipal bond initiative to combat rising sea levels and support affordable housing. In January 2019, he told the Miami Herald that his three major themes for governance would be quality of life, a pathway to prosperity, and resiliency.
On the central issue of abortion, according to the Washington Examiner, Suarez supports a nationwide abortion ban if it came after 15 weeks and had exceptions for the life of the mother, rape, and incest. That places him somewhere in the center of the continuum; he is conservative on the timing of the abortion, but willing to allow for exceptions. Certainly not on the fringes.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, recently signed a six-week abortion ban into law. Even former President Donald Trump has criticized DeSantis’ bill, suggesting that many people within the pro-life movement feel that it is too harsh. Trump himself has cagily refused to elaborate on his own stance regarding abortion, leaving room, as is his habit, to deny it if it should turn out to be unpopular.
Suarez has been popular with the conservative intelligentsia and locally. He won his first mayoral run in 2017 with almost 86% of the vote, and according to local political analysts, he has managed to remain popular with all of the discordant constituencies that make Miami an “electoral powder keg”. This is no easy task to accomplish and bodes well for him.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday on June 11, 2023, Suarez plugging visits to early primary states, said, “when I take the message to people, they want to hear more.”
Judging by the buzz he is creating, it looks like he may be right.
