Miami Mayor Francis Suarez filed paperwork Wednesday to run for the Republican presidential nomination, joining the crowded race just a day after Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in Miami’s federal court to 37 felony counts.
The 45-year-old mayor, the only Hispanic candidate in the race, is under investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust for allegedly getting paid by a local developer to help them get permits for a $70 million project in Coconut Grove – a story The Miami Herald first broke. Meanwhile, The FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission have reportedly opened parallel investigations into developer Rishi Kapoor’s hiring of Suarez as a $10,000-a-month consultant through subsidiary Location Ventures for that same project.
Suarez, the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, is the son of Miami's first Cuban-born mayor and subsequent county commissioner, Xavier Suarez. The younger Suarez has gained national attention in recent years for his efforts to lure companies to Miami, with an eye toward turning the city into a crypto hub and the next Silicon Valley.
Suarez, who is vying to become the first sitting mayor elected president, has a mostly ceremonial position with no executive authority in strong-manager form of government. He joins a GOP primary fight that includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Despite having a candidate field in the double digits, the race is largely seen as a two-person contest between Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Suarez has said he didn’t support Trump in either the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections, instead writing in the names of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and then-Vice President Pence. In 2018, Suarez publicly condemned Trump after reports came out that he had questioned why the United States would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa.
But times have changed, and Trump’s former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has even floated Suarez’s name as a possible vice-presidential pick.
Suarez has been critical of DeSantis, dismissing some of the state laws he has signed on immigration as “headline grabbers” lacking in substance. He has said immigration is an issue that “screams for a national solution” at a time when many Republicans back hard-line policies.
The two-term mayor previously expressed support for a Florida law championed by DeSantis and dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” that bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, but he has not specified whether he supported the expansion of the policy to all grades. Like other Republicans, Suarez has criticized DeSantis’ feud with Disney over the same law, saying it looks like a “personal vendetta.”
Further ingratiating himself with the Trump team, Suarez has echoed Trump’s attacks on DeSantis’ demeanor, saying the governor doesn’t make eye contact and struggles with personal relationships with other politicians.
In 2020, the mayor made a play to attract tech companies to Florida after the state relaxed its COVID-19 restrictions. He met with Big Tech players and investors such as PayPal founder Peter Thiel and tech magnate Marcelo Claure, began appearing on national television and was profiled by magazines.
Suarez, who has said he takes his salary in Bitcoin, has also hosted Bitcoin conferences and started heavily promoting a cryptocurrency project named Miami Coin, created by a group called City Coins.
But the hype dissipated as virus restrictions eased elsewhere, eliminating Miami’s advantage on the COVID-19 front. Suarez’s vision also hit roadblocks with the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which was set to move its U.S. headquarters to Miami’s financial district before its founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last December.
The only cryptocurrency exchange that traded Miami Coin suspended its trading, citing liquidity problems, not living up to its promise to generate enough money to eliminate city taxes.
Miami also ranks as one of the worst big U.S. cities for income inequality, is one of the country’s most unaffordable cities to live in and has been dubbed the epicenter of the nation’s housing crisis.
Content for this report was gathered from the Associated Press among other news sources.