CNN
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GOP Miami Mayor Francis Suarez officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign Thursday, marking the long-shot candidate’s formal entry into the race.
“My father taught me that you can choose your battles, and I’m choosing the biggest of my life. I’m going to run for president, I’m going to run for your children and mine. Let’s give them the future that is they deserve. It’s time to take matters into our own hands. It’s time to get things started,” Suarez, who came forward Wednesday, said in a video released Thursday morning.
Later that night, during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Suarez sought to offer an alternative to former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, without mentioning any of his fellow Floridians by name, urging Republicans to unify and contact Americans with Reagan’s “big tent” political philosophy.
“It’s time for a leader who can connect with segments of our country that Republicans have historically lost, like young voters and urban voters, and segments we can win with, like Hispanics and suburban women,” he said. say Suarez
During an appearance on Fox News over the weekend, the mayor had said he would make a “major announcement” in the coming weeks and called his remarks at the Reagan Library “one Americans should tune in to.” .
Suarez, a Cuban-American, is currently in his second term as mayor of Miami, Florida’s second most populous city. Until recently, he also served as chairman of the bipartisan United States Conference of Mayors.
Ahead of his filing, a super PAC supporting Suarez released a two-minute video Wednesday touting his leadership in the Florida city while teasing a longshot bid for the White House.
“Conservative Mayor Francis Suarez chose a better path for Miami,” says the video’s narrator, highlighting his focus on crime and support for law enforcement.
The first major Hispanic candidate to enter the Republican race, Suarez starts as a decided underdog in the primary, with Trump, a resident of nearby Palm Beach, and DeSantis dominating the field in the polls. The primary also includes former Vice President Mike Pence, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Gov. of New Jersey Chris Christie.
Trump’s recent federal indictment over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office has also weighed on the Republican contest. The former president remains popular among the party’s base, and the candidates have been divided in their reactions to the accusation.
Suarez, who has previously been critical of Trump, told Fox News on Sunday that news of the former president’s first federal indictment felt “un-American” and “wrong on some level.”
In an interview with CBS News Last month, Suarez said deciding on a presidential run was a “soul-searching process.” He also nodded to his lack of national name recognition, saying, “I’m someone who needs to be better known by this country.”
Suarez’s late entry into the Republican primary, relative to other contenders, could affect his chances of qualifying for the first Republican primary debate, scheduled for Milwaukee on August 23. you need to get together to make the scene.
Prior to his first election as mayor in 2017, Suarez served as a Miami city commissioner for eight years. His father, Xavier Suarez, also served as mayor of Miami in the 1980s and 1990s, although his last victory in 1997 was overturned after a investigation of electoral fraud.
As mayor, Suarez has sought to bring a new era of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship to his city, including promoting industries such as cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. He has defended that Miami is the new Silicon Valley even invited Elon Musk move Twitter’s headquarters to the city.
Suarez has also spoken about the fight against climate change: “It’s not theoretical for us in the city of Miami, it’s real,” he said. CBS News last year.
The mayor has clashed with DeSantis at times, including over the governor’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, his claims of voter fraud in the state and, most recently, his feud with Disney.
Still, Suarez is a supporter of the Florida law championed by DeSantis that critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay,” which bans certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. But Disney’s opposition to the measure led DeSantis to plan a takeover of the special taxing district that allowed the entertainment giant to build its iconic theme park empire in Central Florida. The move has alarmed some Republicans, who question whether elected executives should use state power to punish a company.
Disney announced last month that it was scrapping plans to build a $1 billion office campus that is estimated to have created 2,000 white-collar jobs.
“He took an issue that was a winning issue that we all agreed on,” Suarez said NewsNation in May, “and it looks like now it’s something that’s a spite or maybe a personal vendetta, that has cost the state now potentially 2,000 jobs in a billion dollar investment.”
When DeSantis proposed a police force to investigate voter fraud, Suarez said CNN’s Jake Tapper last year that he did not see it “as a major problem in our state, or in our city, frankly.”
During the pandemic, Suarez opposed the reopening of bars in DeSantis as Covid-19 cases continued to rise in the state. He noted “the question of whether the decisions (made by the state) are based on data or policy.”
Suarez told the Miami Herald that he voted for DeSantis’ Democratic opponent in 2018, but is voting for governor in 2022.
Suarez’s presidential bid comes as Florida, long a swing state, has trended red, with Republicans winning in recent election cycles, particularly among Hispanic voters.
In 2020, Trump lost Hispanic-majority Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous county, which includes the city of Miami, by 7 points. Four years earlier, he had lost the county to Hillary Clinton by 30 points. Similarly, last year, DeSantis cruised to re-election in part because of his success in Miami-Dade, which has historically been a big source of Democratic votes. DeSantis also won Orlando-area Osceola County, another recent Democratic stronghold with a large Puerto Rican population.
In a Fox News op-ed last fall, Suarez said the GOP’s success in Miami “can be replicated nationally if Republicans and all elected officials learn the lessons we learned about building an inclusive conservative majority.”
“In Miami, we’ve grown a high-tech economy that delivers, and voters have responded to our work by voting Republican across the board, from my nearly 80 percent re-election results as mayor to growing margins of the Republican Congress. candidates,” he wrote.
This story has been updated with additional details.
