GOP Miami mayor jumps into crowded race for president in 2024

Florida is doing its part to produce presidential candidates. Joining two other GOP contenders — former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis — in the race of 2024 is Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.

Suarez announced his intentions during an appearance on “Good Morning America” Thursday.

“I’m running to be the president of the United States, and I’m running against Joe Biden’s America — an America where the poor get poorer, an America where America gets weaker, an America where if things don’t change China will be the lone superpower. That’s what I’m running for,” he said, per The Associated Press.

Miami mayor joins a long list of Republican candidates

Suarez, the two-term mayor, is joining a large crowd of GOP candidates who are vying for the Republican nomination, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as well as the two front-runners, Trump and DeSantis.

Politico reported that Suarez filed the paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, a day after Trump was arraigned at a Miami federal court. In fact, he was in the courtroom during the arraignment.

On the indictment, he said that “if we continue to have a conversation about the former president, then the former president will be the nominee,” per ABC News.

But, he said, Republicans perceive an inequality in the justice system. “I think the fact that we’re in a presidential campaign, and we’re seeing a former president be indicted multiple times, is something that Republicans view as partisan and problematic in a country like ours, in a democracy,” Suarez said.

The mayor spoke out against DeSantis over Disney abandoning plans to build a $1 billion office campus in Florida.

“(DeSantis) took an issue that was a winning issue that we all agreed on,” Suarez told NewsNation in May, “and it looks like now it’s something that’s spite or maybe potentially a personal vendetta, which has cost the state now potentially 2,000 jobs in a billion-dollar investment.”

He is the first local-born mayor of Miami, the second-most populated city in Florida, and the son of Xavier Suarez, the first Cuban mayor of Miami, elected in the late 1980s.

Suarez has been hinting at running for president since 2021. He recently admitted that jumping in such a race required a “soul-searching process,” while acknowledging his lack of name recognition: “I’m someone who needs to be better known by this country,” he said in an interview with CBS News.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s tenure as mayor

During his tenure as mayor, he has often touted a historically low crime rate and technological developments, while vowing to protect the city from the effects of climate change.

In 2019, he wrote a New York Times op-ed with Ban Ki-moon, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, detailing Miami’s fight against rising sea levels by “raising buildings, improving drainage, and buying and demolishing properties in vulnerable areas.”

“That is why leadership, particularly from city governments like Miami’s, is so important in driving investment in adaptation,” the article said.

As for COVID-19, the mayor had canceled a few music festivals before the virus was reported in Miami. He contracted COVID-19 early on and recorded his experience for the public.

“I’m running for president because I think I have a different message than other candidates have,” Suarez said on “Good Morning America.” “I’m generational — and not generational as a buzzword, but as someone who has implemented generational change to create prosperity in the city.”