In a 2024 Republican presidential field filled with long-term candidates, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez may be the longest running role of all.
No sitting mayor has ever been elected president of the United States, a job that has historically been won by governors, vice presidents, senators or cabinet secretaries. Some former mayors have become commanders in chief, but only after holding high-profile positions.
None of this has deterred Suárez, who announced his campaign last week talking about his experience leading the city of about 450,000 inhabitants. Being Miami’s two-term mayor, he said, has helped him understand and confront issues facing most Americans, such as crime and homelessness. In his kickoff video, Suarez jogged past his childhood home and high school and talked about his record of cutting taxes and expanding Miami’s tech economy.
“In Miami, we stopped expecting Washington to lead,” Suarez said.
The 45-year-old corporate and real estate attorney, a former president of the United States Conference of Mayors, is vying for the nomination against two other Florida residents: former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. They have consistently been first and second, respectively, in early primary voting, well ahead of the rest of the field.
So far, this has made it difficult for other candidates to break through. They include former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Gov. North Dakota Doug Burgum, radio host Larry Elder and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Throughout American history, only three presidents were former mayors, though each (Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge) held positions such as governor or vice president in between. And while this year’s primary field is crowded and the odds are against a long-serving mayor, there are recent precedents for both a mayor becoming a major contender and someone with no government experience becoming president.
Trump, a businessman and former reality TV star, is the only person elected president who has never served in public or military office.
In the 2020 election cycle, Pete Buttigieg, the young mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was the biggest surprise success story of the Democratic primary. Known on the campaign trail as “Mayor Pete,” he finished first in Iowa’s early caucuses and a close second in New Hampshire before christening himself in more diverse states and dropping out to support Joe Biden.
When Biden won the presidency, he tapped Buttigieg to be his transportation secretary, and Buttigieg is now considered one of the party’s most promising future presidential candidates.
Buttigieg drew heavily on his experience as mayor in his campaign, including his own work to turn around a Rust Belt city that was once described as “dying” due to the manufacturing shutdown. He liked to tell voters that Washington should run like the best cities in the US.
Voters appreciated that being mayor is a hands-on job and that mayors are accountable to voters in a way that senators and governors are not, said Lis Smith, a senior Buttigieg campaign adviser who shaped your communications from the beginning. One of Buttigieg’s favorite lines on the campaign trail was about how he often ran into his constituents at the grocery store. The fact that Buttigieg was not a product of Washington also “was very, very attractive to voters,” Smith said.
“Republican and Democratic voters don’t have much in common these days, but I think one thing they share is their distaste for Washington politics and Washington politicians,” Smith said.
But Smith also cautioned that while mayors can claim credit for all the things that go right in their community, they also bear responsibility for the things that go wrong.
Buttigieg experienced this when a white South Bend police officer fatally shot a black man, prompting the mayor to step away from the campaign trail so he could respond not only to the shooting but also to questions about inequality racial and tensions between black residents and South Bend police. . That, Smith said, “was by far the hardest part” of his candidacy.
Suarez, the son of Miami’s first Cuban mayor and the only Hispanic candidate in the race, believes he can help the party better appeal to Hispanic voters. He also touts his relative youth compared to the rest of the field, most of whom are in their 50s and 70s, saying he represents the “generational change” America needs.
“It’s time for a leader who can connect with segments of our country that Republicans have historically lost,” Suarez said during a speech on his presidential campaign at the Ronald Reagan Library in California Thursday night.
Then, briefly reiterating his credentials as Miami’s leader, he went into mayoral mode for a moment.
“I think this city needs more than a screamer or a fighter,” Suarez said, apparently substituting “city” for “country.”
“I think he needs a server. He needs a mayor.”
