By Naomi Lim, White House Reporter. Media: Washington Examiner.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, joining a field led by two other Florida residents: former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
“My Dad taught me that you get to choose your battles, and I am choosing the biggest one of my life,” he tweeted on Thursday morning. “I’m running for President.” Suarez’s announcement comes after he filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission for a presidential run on Wednesday.
The latest GOP presidential contestant is set to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation on Thursday night.
Suarez, 45, Miami’s two-term mayor, has been described by Trump 2016 campaign manager and former presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway as a possible commander in chief who has a “natural ability to connect with and listen to people.
“I’ve not been shy about telling President Trump that Suarez should be on the short list for VP should Trump be the nominee,” Conway said last month.
Suarez, the son of Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor, leveraged that pedigree as Miami prepared for Trump’s arrest and arraignment, granting several national news outlet interviews, convening a press conference to ease public safety concerns, and dropping by Miami’s federal courthouse downtown before the former president arrived.
“Today was about keeping people safe. We achieved it,” he tweeted Tuesday.
The Democratic National Committee went after Suarez in a statement after he filed his campaign paperwork, comparing him to Trump and criticizing his business dealings.
“Francis Suarez is yet another contender in the race for the MAGA base who has supported key pieces of Donald Trump’s agenda,” the DNC said.
While Trump grapples with allegations he illegally retained classified documents, conspired against the government to keep them, and lied about it, Suarez is reportedly facing his own federal investigation. The FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into whether $10,000 monthly payments to Suarez from Miami real estate developer Rishi Kapoor’s subsidiary company Location Ventures were made for permits or other favors regarding a $70 million Coconut Grove mixed-use project. Suarez and Kapoor have denied any wrongdoing, but the inquiry has reignited calls for him to release his tax returns, which he did not do during his mayoral campaigns.
A Suarez presidential campaign also sets up the prospect of a home-state rivalry between the mayor and DeSantis. The mayor, who voted for Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum in 2018, has complained about DeSantis’s pandemic policies in the past and, last week, indirectly criticized the governor’s new immigration laws.
Suarez does not have “much of a chance” to win the Republican nomination, according to University of Central Florida politics professor Aubrey Jewett.
“[Miami] is an area that has really trended Republican, and so he might be able to use those points as part of a national campaign. As for his lane, perhaps a somewhat more moderate Hispanic Republican compared to Trump or DeSantis,” Jewett told the Washington Examiner. “And of course, although well known in Miami, he has almost no name recognition outside of South Florida and probably will have a hard time raising money.”
Suarez joins a GOP field that already includes former Vice President Mike Pence, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), among others.
The winner will likely face President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election.