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(Trends Wide Spanish) — Francis Suarez, the 43rd mayor of the city of Miami, was elected in 2017 with 86% of the vote and re-elected in 2021 with 78%.
He is the first Miami mayor born in the city and became the first mayor not born in Cuba since 1996, when Stephen Clark left office, although his roots are Cuban.
His father is the Democrat Xavier Suarez, who was also the mayor of Miami and former Miami-Dade County commissioner, while his mother, Rita Suarez, took care of his upbringing and that of his three siblings after arriving from the island.
Before his first election as mayor in 2017, Suarez was a Miami city commissioner for eight years.
Until recently he also served as president of the United States Bipartisan Conference of Mayors.
His household is made up of his wife, Gloria Fonz Suarez, and their children, Andrew Xavier and Gloriana Pilar.
Francis Suarez graduated from high school in 1996. He later earned his bachelor’s degree in Finance from Florida International University. According to his biography on the city government page, he graduated in the top 10% of his class. He then received his law degree from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he graduated cum laude in 2004.
Prior to running for public office, Suarez founded a real estate firm. He is currently a practicing attorney with a law firm and his specialty is real estate transactions.
Suarez’s proposals
Technology, innovation and entrepreneurship have been pillars of their campaigns. He has promoted industries like cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. Even in 2021 he just became the first American politician to accept a salary from him in cryptocurrency.
He has said he wants to make Miami the new Silicon Valley and has even invited Elon Musk to move Twitter headquarters to the city.
Climate change has also been one of its banners. In February 2019, she wrote an article in The New York Times with former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon about how Miami is defending itself from the effects of climate change.
Away from DeSantis and Trump
Suarez said that in 2018 he voted for the Governor of Florida in favor of the Democratic candidate, who lost to the current governor Ron De Santis, which earned him criticism within the Republican Party.
Then, in 2020, it emerged that Suarez did not vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
As mayor, he has at times clashed with DeSantis on issues such as the governor’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, his claims about voter fraud in the state and, most recently, his dispute with Disney.
Still, Suarez is a defender of the Florida law — pushed by De Santis — that critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay,” which prohibits certain instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
Suarez in the Republican race
Suarez becomes the first prominent Hispanic candidate to enter the Republican race. Although he is aware that he has a ways to go if he wants to get close to the in-state favorites of his, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump.
