Francis Suarez Sees His Big Break as Ron DeSantis Falters

• Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced his candidacy for the 2024 GOP nomination last week, becoming the third Floridian to join the race.
• Suarez, currently the only Hispanic candidate, has told Newsweek he is seeking to help Republicans win the Latino vote not just in 2024, but for "a generation of elections."
• He is not the first sitting mayor to run for president, but no sitting mayor has ever been elected to the White House.

The Republican field is already crowded with dozens of White House hopefuls, but Miami Mayor Francis Suarez sees a special spot in that lineup just for him.

As of Thursday, there are 11 GOP candidates who have announced their candidacy for the party's 2024 nomination. Suarez is by no means the biggest name from Florida to run for POTUS. When he launched his campaign last week, he became the third candidate from the state, joining the two frontrunners of the race: former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

The celebrity of Trump, and now DeSantis, may intimidate other Republicans from jumping into the race, but not Suarez. The two-term mayor sees himself as "a unique opportunity for the country" who looks and sounds different from the other GOP options, and while Trump's lead may be hard to catch up to this early in the race, Suarez is prepared to beat out DeSantis and take his spot as the former president's most formidable challenger.

"The governor had a legislative session that he thought was going to propel him to stardom, and I think a lot of his policy positions were based on his desire to run for president, and that sort of fell flat," Suarez told Newsweek in an exclusive interview on Thursday. "His announcement didn't go well. He hasn't gotten any lift and I think it creates an opportunity for someone like me to come in with a different message, a different vision and a different emphasis."

As the only Hispanic candidate currently running for the White House, Suarez believes he could help Republicans win not only the 2024 election but "a generation of elections," if the party can get Latino and Hispanic voters—who make up the nation's largest ethnic minority group—on their side.

In a wide-ranging discussion with Newsweek, the 45-year-old Cuban-American talked about the GOP's obsession with culture wars, how climate change policy could boost the U.S. economy and why a sitting mayor is America's best choice for a commander-in-chief.

The Mayor of Miami

Being the mayor of a municipality of 450,000 people, Suarez recognizes that the jump from his current office to the Oval Office is a significant one, but he noted that his resume has given him the chance to see the country in a "granular" way.

Suarez, the son of Miami's first Cuban-born mayor, was first elected to the nonpartisan office in 2017 with 85 percent of the vote and re-elected in 2021 with 78 percent. During his first term in office, he was also elected by American mayors to serve as the Second Vice President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, an organization that he later became the president of between June 2022 and June 2023.

Sitting and former mayors tend to be longshot candidates in presidential elections because their local experiences face long odds against candidates who have held state or federal office. However, there have been a number of former mayors who have run prominent campaigns, like South Bend, Indiana's Pete Buttigieg and New York City's Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, who all ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

"The beauty of a mayoral personality is we're about solving problems," Suarez said. "I don't have the luxury of blaming people. I don't have the luxury of political stunting. I have to solve the problem. I have to address the problem. And the American people deserve that and, frankly, expect that."

"They want their next president, whoever that person is, to take these problems head-on, provide a clear solution, be able to work across the aisle," he added.

The Right's Culture Wars

Across the country, Republicans have introduced a flurry of legislation targeting social issues that have dominated the conservative landscape.

DeSantis has been arguably one of the leading proponents of cracking down on LGBTQ+ issues. Last year, the governor made headlines after he signed the controversial parental rights bill, dubbed as the "Don't Say Gay" bill by its critics, into law, which in turn sparked a massive feud between him and Disney, which spoke out against the legislation. The year before, he banned transgender athletes from competing on women's and girls' sports teams. He expanded on those anti-trans efforts earlier this year when he signed into law new restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for minors, bathroom usage and which pronouns can be used in schools.

On the other hand, Suarez has vocally supported LGBTQ+ issues, releasing statements praising Miami's transgender communities and criticizing the "Don't Say Gay" bill as "excessive."

"Miami was ranked the most diverse city in America and that's something that we lean into, it's something that we embrace," Suarez said. "We want people to feel welcome, we want them to feel safe, we want them to feel loved in our city. It's our strength and frankly, that's quintessentially American."

"We want people to feel good about where they live and I think the Republican Party needs to exemplify those values as well," he said.

Immigration

DeSantis has also picked a national fight over the issue of immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In September, he flew migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard in solidarity with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who was bussing asylum seekers to cities run by Democratic mayors, like New York City and Chicago, in an effort to pressure the Biden administration to crack down on the border. Democrats and the White House denounced DeSantis' decision, decrying it as a political stunt, and the flights spurred multiple lawsuits and investigations.

Asked about the GOP-led effort to send migrants up north, Suarez said, "I'm someone who wants to make a difference, not a statement."

"Immigration should be a strength for our country," he said. "It should be something that we look at as a strength, not just in terms of the individual person, but what it means for our future."

To do that, Suarez said immigration policy needs to be pegged to metrics like unemployment rate and birth rates.

'Weaponization' of the Federal Government

Another key issue that Republicans have seized on is the "weaponization" of the federal government. The FBI raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago last summer sent conservatives into a frenzy, casting doubt over the federal law enforcement agency and accusing the Justice Department of going after the former president as part of a politically motivated "witch hunt." The Republican House Majority created a subcommittee to investigate abuses of federal authority and Trump's indictment this month only added fire to Republican suspicion.

Suarez, himself, is involved in a federal probe. Earlier this month, the Miami Herald reported that the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened parallel investigations into Miami developer Rishi Kapoori's business dealings, including $10,000 monthly payments that were made to Suarez from a subsidiary of his company.

Unlike some of his colleagues, who have ramped up their attack on federal agencies in the last year, Suarez trusts the investigative process, even the inquiry into his relationship with Kapoori. In fact, he sees the current political climate as an opportunity for him to rebuild the public's trust in the courts.

"I have no problem with the scrutiny," he said. "I've been a public official for 13 years... and I've never had any ethical issues. I don't expect this to be any different.

"Without a doubt, Republicans feel that they've lost trust in a lot of our classical institutions that are important in a thriving democracy, like the press, and of course, the justice system," Suarez said. "I'd like to restore that trust and part of my campaign will be to depoliticize it."

Reaching New Voters for the GOP

When it comes to the Latino vote, Suarez could offer a beacon of hope for Republicans. Democrats have appeared to already begin their 2024 strategy, elevating the White House's highest-ranking Latina to President Joe Biden's campaign manager.

Latino advocacy groups have stressed that the electorate is not only the fastest-growing ethnic minority group in the country, but true swing voters who are more likely than other Americans to identify as independents.

As a more moderate candidate, Suarez could run a campaign that not only captures Republican voters but Hispanic voters who are either independent or more centrist Democrats. He also thinks he understands Hispanic voters better than Democrats, not just because of his own background but also because he doesn't see all Latinos the same.

"Democrats have given them a huge opportunity by calling [Hispanic voters] Latinx, which doesn't really resonate in that sort of monolithic brand, and then by saying things like, 'We're as unique as San Antonio tacos,' that's also doesn't resonate," Suarez said. "Every Hispanic culture is different. You have to understand those differences. You have to appreciate those differences."

Another demographic the mayor thinks is important for Republicans to focus on is young voters, which polls show to be more active in addressing climate change than older generations.

Although Republicans have not prioritized climate change policy as aggressively as Democrats have, Suarez believes "a good economic case to be made for pro-environment policies."

"There's this sort of false dichotomy that you either have to be pro-environment or pro-economy," he said. "[In South Florida], we have hurricanes and natural disasters—they're not Republican or Democrat."

"All the studies show that for every dollar you invest proactively pre-disaster—and you're seeing disasters across America, whether it's wildfires, whether it's tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.—you save $7 post-disaster, so it's just good economics," he added.

Asked whether he'd consider running as Trump's VP, Suarez said he has "zero" thoughts on anything but the presidency right now. For him, the focus is on "volume."

"I want to have an opportunity to speak to, talk to the most amount of people," he said. "Being on the debate stage on August 23 is going to be critical to continuing this conversation, which is a different conversation than what America has been hearing up to now."