Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s committee has its biggest fundraising haul yet in March
March was the biggest fundraising month yet for Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s political committee, which pulled in more than $875,000 from a variety of power players including a new-to-Miami tech startup, a cryptocurrency trader and a local sports team owner.
The haul increases Suarez’s account to nearly $1.9 million ahead of the city’s Nov. 2 election. And it featured more fruits of his campaign to woo the tech world to Miami, which began around the same time his committee’s fundraising picked up late last year.
The biggest donation to his Miami for Everyone committee in March was $75,000 from GoBrands Inc., the company behind retail delivery startup goPuff, according to state records released Monday. The startup opened its first location in South Florida last year and has since launched three more.
Michael Komaransky, a cryptocurrency investor who famously sold his Miami mansion for Bitcoin in 2018, also poured $50,000 into Suarez’s committee last month. Suarez has touted the use of cryptocurrency and asked the city to explore the possibility of doing some business in Bitcoin.
Still, most of the money the committee raised in March came from people and companies with more of a track record in Miami politics, many of them developers. That’s a shift from the prior two months when a bigger share of the funds came from the tech world — including $100,000 in February from Shutterstock founder Jonathan Oringer and $250,000 in January from billionaire and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya.
In March, Suarez’s committee received a slew of relatively smaller checks, such as $50,000 apiece from developers Chetrit Group and Property Markets Group, $25,000 from a company run by Miami Design District developer Craig Robins, and $25,000 from the company of developer Ugo Colombo.
Among the other contributions were $5,000 from Tampa Bay Rays co-owner Randy Frankel and $5,000 from Aneel Ranadive, who is an entrepreneur and the son of Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive.
Suarez’s reelection campaign, which is separate from his political committee and can receive maximum contributions of $1,000, raised an additional $25,000 in March, city records show. Suarez is seeking a second four-year term as mayor.
So far, two political novices, Maxwell Manuel Martinez and Anthony Melvin Dutrow, have filed to run against Suarez. The qualifying period for the November election is in September.
