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Francis Xavier Suarez ( ; born October 6, 1977) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the 43rd mayor of Miami since 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a member of the Miami City Commission from 2009 to 2017. He is the son of former Miami mayor Xavier Suarez.
Suarez is a graduate of Florida International University (FIU), where he earned a bachelor's degree in finance. After that he earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Florida in 2004. He was first elected to represent the 4th district in the Miami City Commission in 2009 and was reelected in 2011 and 2015. He served until 2017 when he was elected mayor of Miami. He was re-elected in 2021. During his mayoralty, Suarez has been noted for his advocacy for cryptocurrency.
Suarez was a candidate in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries, but withdrew from the race after he failed to qualify for the first primary debate.
Suarez attended Immaculata-LaSalle High School. He graduated in 1996 and went on to graduate in the top 10% of his class from Florida International University (FIU) with a bachelor's degree in finance. Following college, Suarez chose to attend the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law, receiving his Juris Doctor degree cum laude in 2004.
In 2021 Suarez joined the newly established Miami office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. His mayoralty is a part-time job due to its limited duties and powers. On July 1, 2023, due to his ongoing presidential candidacy, Suarez went on unpaid leave from the firm.
Before serving in the city government, Suarez first served on his local homeowner association. Suarez cited a home burglary that he had suffered as his motivation for getting involved.
In January 2013 the Miami Herald wrote that in his first three years on the City Commission "Suarez has had mixed results passing policy." Suarez introduced a controversial motion that was passed by the City Commission, resulting in a decrease to city employees salaries. He also was an advocate for changes that were made to the zoning code of the city aimed at easing the ability to construct affordable housing. However, Suarez was unsuccessful in a push to move the city from using a weak mayor form of government to adopting a strong mayor form of government.
Suarez was initially a close ally of Mayor Regaldo. In late 2011, Regaldo asked Suarez to hold the chairmanship of the City Commission. After Regaldo was at odds with Police Chief Miguel Exposito, Suarez introduced a controversial motion to fire Exposito, which was passed by the City Commission. However, in mid-2012 Suarez became critical of Regaldo's leadership, attacking high turnover among Regaldo's staff and questioning the finance department's ability to balance the city's budget on time. Suarez even came to criticize Regaldo's feud with former police chief Exposito. Suarez ultimately announced a campaign to unseat Regaldo in the 2013 mayoral election.
Suarez was an opponent of red light cameras in the city, which had become a controversial issue in Miami.
On January 15, 2013, Suarez officially announced his candidacy in a press conference he held outside of his personal resident in the Coral Gate neighborhood. Suarez's father attended the press conference and supported Suarez's candidacy. Suarez stated that, if elected, he would provide the city with "forward-thinking and innovative" governance. Suarez declared his campaign platform would focus on increasing the city's emergency financial reserves, helping small businesses, strengthen the city's police department, and elevating the city's national prominence. Upon the launch of Suarez's campaign, political analysts predicted a competitive election. Despite his strong fundraising and support from prominent political players, Suarez was regarded to be the underdog due to Regaldo's popularity with likely voters. Suarez being the scion of a former mayor was regarded as both a boon and a potential liability, as voter sentiments on his father's tenures as mayor varied, with his father having both a strong fan base but also carrying negative baggage with other voters. Suarez's age (thirty years Regaldo's junior) was seen as a likely liability to his candidacy, opening him up to accusations of inexperience. However, Suarez claimed his candidacy provided, "an opportunity for our generation to take a leadership role in the community."
For his campaign, Suarez hired experienced local political consultants, a media firm based in Washington, D.C., as well as a Virginia-based pollster. However, the primary actors in Suarez's campaign operation were relatives of his, including his cousin Steve Suarez, who served as his campaign manager.
Suarez's candidacy garnered the support of fellow Miami city commissioners Marc Sarnon, Michelle Spence-Jones, and Willy Gort.
Suarez's candidacy was rocked by controversies regarding the conduct of staffers. Two staffers became the subject of criminal investigations for forging signatures of acquaintances on absentee ballot request forms. Another staffer submitted twenty online absentee ballot requests in violation of Florida law, which dictated that online requests could only be made by the voter or a member of their immediate family. Suarez's father was accused of possibly attempting to influence a witness in the investigations when he reached out by email one of the voters for whom a ballot request had been illegally submitted. These scandals led to both this staffer and the campaign manager (Steve Suarez) each pleading guilty to resulting in probation. These scandals ultimately led Suarez to end his campaign on August 26, 2013. In ending his candidacy, Suarez cited several factors including "mistakes" made by his campaign team.
Miami has a weak mayor system under which the mayor holds little authority, The city's mayoralty is a part-time position and does not have power over the city's administration. Its limited powers include a veto over city commission legislation and the ability to declare emergencies. The mayor's signature is not necessary for measures adopted by the commission to be enacted. Legislation is automatically ratified ten days afte adoption by the commission if the mayor does not act to veto it. The mayor of Miami can also hire and fire the city manager who runs Miami's government, though the city commissioners have the ability to overrule a mayor's choice. While he has limited statutory power, Douglas Hanks of the Miami Herald noted in June 2023 that Suarez has managed to position himself as, "the most high-profile figure" in Miami's city government.
In June 2020, Suarez was elected by American mayors to serve as the second vice president of the United States Conference of Mayors and in June 2021, he was elected as the first vice president of the organization. From June 2022 to June 2023, he served as the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Suarez was included in Fortune magazine's 2021 list of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders".
Suarez played an important role in securing narrow city commission passage of approval for Miami Freedom Park and its related urban development project. The centerpiece of the project is a soccer specific stadium to be constructed by the ownership of Major League Soccer's Inter Miami CF. The stadium will be built on land that was a city-owned golf course.
In November 2019 the Miami City Commission unanimously adopted a resolution submitted by Suarez amounting to a climate emergency declaration for Miami. The resolution was symbolic, having no attached actions or plans. Suarez pledged to spend funds raised from the Miami Forever Bond to address climate matters and to pursue additional state and federal funding.
Suarez has advertised Miami as being an ascendant low-tax business haven akin to Switzerland, Monaco, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh and Doha. He has dubbed Miami the "capital of capital" (meaning " Suarez has also promoted the city of Miami to investors as being a profitable location for tech and finance firms to locate their offices.
In 2022, Suarez spoke at the World Economic Forum.
Suarez attracted national headlines by replying on Twitter to posts in which California-based technology company executives complained about their dissatisfaction with California's state government. Suarez replied to their posts with "how can I help?", which he turned into a personal catchphrase.
Growth of city
Suarez has laid some credit for Florida's growth on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's capping of the state and local tax deduction making Florida a more attractive state for Americans to live in than states with higher state and local taxes. He also credits Miami and Florida having less health-related restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic than many other parts of the country as attracting some of the new population. He also credits the post-pandemic increase remote work as allowing people employed elsewhere to relocate to Miami –positing that Miami's handling of "quality-of-life issues" has attracted people from other cities.
As a gesture of his support for cryptocurrency, in November 2021 he announced that he planned to receive his next mayoral salary payment in the form of bitcoin (a cryptocurrency). As of early 2024, maintained this personal bitcoin holding (having opted against selling or exchanging it).
As part of his friendliness towards cryptocurrency, Suarez touted the naming rights deal for Kaseya Center (renamed "FTX Arena") with cryptocurrency exchange FTX, appearing repeatedly with Sam Bankman-Fried. When the company filed for bankruptcy amid charges of fraud, the deal was terminated. He also supported plans FTX had before its collapse made to move its headquarters to Miami. Suarez would later comment that his decision to support involvement with FTX had "not matured well," but noted that many prominent investors had been invested in FTX.
In September 2021, Suarez revealed that his ultimate plan for the city of Miami is to abolish taxes. Instead, he hopes to fund the city's activities via the issuance and continued mining of a city-specific blockchain token called MiamiCoin. He also stated that Miami is looking to allow its residents to be paid in Bitcoin, and to be able to pay their taxes using Bitcoin. In November 2021, Suarez became the first U.S. politician to take their salary in cryptocurrency. Less than a year after the launch of MiamiCoin, the token was delisted from its last exchange, OKCoin, after losing over 90% of its value. Suarez lost $2,500 personally on MiamiCoin. Suarez continued to tout the money earned from MiamiCoin, and maintained his support for cryptocurrency.
Miami was one of three finalist cities, along with Houston and Milwaukee. During the bid, Suarez supported a city commission resolution that would have (only in the instance Miami was selected to host the 2020 DNC) granted Miami's municipal administrators permission to begin immediate preparations. The resolution was passed unanimously by the city commission in January 2019. A similar resolution had already been passed in Miami Beach. Miami was unsuccessful in its bid for the convention, with Milwaukee being selected instead.
The accelerated population growth that the city has experienced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to worsening traffic congestion in the city (as of 2024, the data company Inrix ranked Miami as ranked the ninth-worst city in the world in terms of traffic).
In July 2024, while attending a meeting where the board was scheduled to hold a vote on adopting a new five-year improvement plan, Suarez publicly castigated the board as having been inadequate at improving transit. Suarez criticized the $680 million financing proposed for specific projects at Miami International Airport (including an expansion of Concourse D) as too little money and not doing enough to improve the airport. However, he appeared unaware that there had been a separate $6.8 billion capital plan for the airport (to be implemented over five to 15 years), which included the $754 million South Terminal project that had broken ground earlier that year.
At July 2024 meeting, Suarez sought to justify his regular absences from the board's meetings, remarking,
Suarez further criticize the board as doing too little to explore new technologies, remarking,
Suarez contracted the virus, which he confirmed during an interview with the Miami Herald on March 13, 2020. He was the second person confirmed to be infected in Miami-Dade County. He began posting daily video diaries to Instagram, showing the progression of his COVID-19 infection.
In April 2020, Suarez wrote to President Trump urging the president to take action to stop flights from COVID-19 "hot spots" from entering Miami International Airport. Carlos A. Giménez, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, came into conflict with Suarez over this. As Gimenez's position held oversight of the airport, he urged Trump to ignore Suarez's letter since the airport was not Suarez's purview.
In July 2020, Suarez dedicated 39 police officers to the task of enforcing a Miami-wide mask-wearing ordinance.
The city opted against challenging the Circuit Court ruling. After this, Suarez re-asserted his support for the city holing future elections in even years instead of odd years, partnering with Pardo to propose a new measure that would offer voters a ballot question to do so beginning in 2032.
Suarez is a significant figure in Florida politics, and has sought to build himself a higher national profile. In July 2024, Governing described Suarez as, "possibly the country's most prominent Republican mayor."
The state ethics commission opened another investigation into Suarez, after Kennedy filed a separate complain in November 2023 alleging that Suarez's spending of municipal funds on personal security for his campaign had violated state ethics statutes. The commission dismissed the complaint in January 2024.
He urged people to tune into a speech he is due to give at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on June 15, calling it a "big speech" about the "future of our country," the clearest indication yet of a presidential campaign announcement.
Suarez filed to run for president with the Federal Election Commission on June 14 and officially launched his bid the next day. Political scientists such as Sean Freeder of the University of North Florida publicly expressed doubts that he would be a viable contender, noting that he was likely to face two other Floridians: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. event in Palm Springs, Florida on the campaign trail on July 16, 2023]]While appearing on Hugh Hewitt's podcast on June 27, 2023, Hewitt asked Suarez about the ongoing persecution of the Uyghurs in China, to which Suarez asked "What's a Uyghur?" Suarez then assured Hewitt that he would research the ethnic group. After the podcast concluded and news of the gaffe broke, Suarez told the media that he was confused by Hewitt's pronunciation of the term 'Uyghur' and is very familiar with the crisis. The gaffe was compared to 2016 presidential candidate Gary Johnson's infamous "What is Aleppo" comment amid the Syrian civil war.
Running for president, he staked out positions on abortion and climate change that were to the left of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, another contender for the nomination.
On July 5, 2023, a super PAC supporting Suarez launched a chatbot that uses his face and voice to answer questions about his campaign. The bot directs users to campaign videos based on the questions asked, and is capable of mocking other presidential candidates such as Ron DeSantis. The program is one of a number of examples of the use of artificial intelligence in the 2024 election, with major presidential contenders DeSantis and Trump using text-to-image models in official campaign videos.
On August 4, Suarez announced that his campaign would accept donations in Bitcoin, as part of his pro-cryptocurrency platform.
On August 8, Suarez announced that he had met the donor requirements to attend the first Republican primary debate in Milwaukee. However, the RNC had to verify this claim before he could be officially added to the roster. He stated in an interview with The Hill that if he did not qualify for the first debate, he may leave the race. Besides having 40,000 unique donors from 20 different states, the other requirement to attend a debate was to be consistently present in polls, which he was not.
A super PAC backing Suarez, the SOS America PAC, complained that Suarez was being excluded from polls saying that the zero and one percent that he was polling at was not reflective of his true popularity. Suarez himself argued that the polling requirement was unfair for "relatively unknown" figures such as himself who are competing against candidates who have been national figures for years.
In addition to saying he would drop out if he did not meet the debate requirements, Suarez also called upon all other candidates to drop out if they failed to qualify for the debate at an event in Iowa. Suarez argues that "if you can't meet the minimum thresholds, you shouldn't be trying to take the time involved away from being productive.” Suarez did not meet the minimum thresholds and did not qualify for the first Republican debate on August 23.
During his campaign Suarez promised $20 gift cards to people who gave a $1 donation to his campaign. However, he has yet to fulfill these promises, and many of his supporters are still waiting for their gift cards. Suarez and his campaign have refused to comment on the issue.
On March 1, 2024, Suarez endorsed Trump's campaign.
Suarez expressed his interest in being Trump's running mate after himself withdrawing from the race for the Republican nomination. Observing that Trump was only constitutionally eligible to be elected to a single additional term beyond the one he had previously served, Suarez observed that it would be possible that Trump's running mate could be a front-runner for the 2028 election regardless of the election outcome. Due to this, he opined that, "anyone who doesn't tell you that they would be interested [in being Trump's running mate] is probably being disingenuous."
Suarez has supported LGBT pride events. He supported the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act as originally signed, which prohibited some classroom instruction on LGBT issues from kindergarten through third grade. However, he opposed its later expansion to all grades. In 2020, Suarez approved of Miami offering certification for businesses by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce making Miami the largest city in Florida to do so. He also signed an LGBTQ Ordinance recognizing the contributions of LGBTQ people to the City of Miami.
Suarez identifies as "pro-life" or anti-abortion and supported the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision which had legalized abortion nationwide. He announced that he supports a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. However, he also supported exceptions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and called abortion a "very nuanced" issue. Suarez would not say whether he supported a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, saying instead, "the country is not there yet."
Suarez, a first generation Cuban Americans, criticized the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship during his presidential campaign. Suarez noted that without birthright citizenship he would have lacked American citizenship. He also argued that refugees from Venezuela should be granted temporary protected status in the US.
End of presidential candidacy
Following his failure to meet the guidelines to attend the first debate, and his call that all candidates that cannot reach these guidelines drop out, Suarez was called upon to follow his own suggestion and drop out of the race by the Miami Herald, Business Insider, Fox News, and Congressman Carlos A. Giménez. Suarez would stay true to his promise and suspended his campaign on August 29, 2023, becoming the first in the 2024 race to drop out.
Prospective 2026 gubernatorial candidacy
Suarez has expressed interest in running for governor in 2026. Current term-limits would prevent Ron DeSantis (the incumbent Republican governor) from seeking another term.
Political positions
While Suarez identifies himself as a conservative Republican, he is commonly described as being a moderate or liberal Republican.Multiple sources:
See also
External links
Categories: 1977 Births, Living People, 21st-century Mayors Of Places In Florida, American Politicians Of Cuban Descent, Candidates In The 2024 United States Presidential Election, Florida International University Alumni, Florida Lawyers, Florida Republicans, Fredric G. Levin College Of Law Alumni, Hispanic And Latino American Mayors In Florida, Latino Conservatism In The United States, Mayors Of Miami, Presidents Of The United States Conference Of Mayors, Miami City Commission Members
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