Republicans lose on Trump’s home turf again

For the second time in a month, Republicans lost a mayoral race in a state US President Donald Trump has called home. This time it happened in Florida.

Democrat Eileen Higgins defeated Republican Emilio González in Miami’s mayoral election on Tuesday to become the first female leader of Florida’s largest city, and the first Democrat to win this race in nearly 30 years. It wasn’t even close: she won by roughly 18 points.

How Higgins did it. Much like her New York City counterpart Zohran Mamdani, Higgins’ campaign centered on affordability. Specifically, it centered on housing costs, which have skyrocketed in the Magic City in recent years. Higgins also made immigration and flood protections part of her campaign, amid opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and concerns about rising sea levels. Higgins also had more financial backing than González.

González also tried to hone in on housing costs, but proposed cutting property taxes rather than building new affordable housing. The former Bush 43 administration official did earn some goodwill for rejecting outgoing Mayor Francis Suarez’s call for postponing the election until 2026.

Red sirens flashing. Higgins’ win marks a remarkable halt to GOP momentum in the city. The Miami area has made a sharp-right turn over the past decade. Trump won Miami-Dade County in last year’s presidential election, just eight years after he lost it by 30 points to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race.

Republicans will be concerned about what this means for their backing among Latino voters. Miami has one of the highest concentrations of Spanish speakers in the US – it has more native Spanish speakers than English ones – and the city’s shift toward the GOP has been a symptom of Republican success among Latino voters nationwide. But Tuesday’s results suggest that Trump can’t rely on their support.

“[Latinos] are the ultimate swing voter,” LIBRE Initiative President Daniel Garza, who engages with Latinos on conservative policies, told GZERO. “They just are not loyal to parties. They don’t give a damn about parties. They want authenticity. They want people who are going to listen to them, listen to their priorities.”

Affordability tops the list. Garza, who said he was “appalled” by what he called a weak GOP turnout operation, agreed that the economy was a top concern for Latinos in Miami – and that Democrats were able to capitalize on it.

Trump, for his part, is trying to douse concerns about the cost of living. He spent much of his stump speech in rural Pennsylvania yesterday mocking the term, “affordability,” arguing Americans have never had it better.

How much of a role did immigration play? There has been a growing national backlash to Trump’s immigration policies. Higgins herself said Miami residents are concerned for the immigration crackdown’s impact on their families.

However, Garza didn’t buy that the Trump administration’s deportation efforts contributed to the Republicans’ defeat in Miami – a city that is home to large Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and Haitian communities, some of whom have hard-right views.

“There’s the citizen-voting Latinos, and then there’s the undocumented resident and visa-carrying Latinos who don’t vote,” said Garza. “That second group is the one that’s most concerned about this. That first group, [not so much].”

Hold your horses, Democrats. Higgins’ win is just the latest in what has been a successful election year for Democrats, boosting the party’s hopes for the 2026 midterms. However, the Dems should take it with a pinch of salt: they’ve had false dawns in Miami before – including one involving Higgins herself in 2018. What’s more, Democrats tend to do better in low-turnout, off-year elections nowadays, so this year’s results don’t necessarily mean the party has recovered from the stinging 2024 defeat.

“The dynamics,” said Garza, “will be entirely different come the midterms.”