Democrat Eileen Higgins, a former county commissioner, defeated Republican Emilio Gonzalez, a former city manager in Miami's mayoral race on Tuesday, ending a nearly 30-year stretch of Republican control of City Hall.
What's worse, she won by a significant margin of nearly 20 points.
A Democrat hasn’t been elected Mayor of Miami in nearly 30 years. VP Harris beat Trump in Miami by just one point last year. Tonight, Eileen Higgins became the first Democrat to win in three decades and won by 19 points. This is a very, very bad sign for the GOP. pic.twitter.com/XSRsezWd9e
— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) December 10, 2025
Miami Mayor
— VoteHub (@VoteHub) December 10, 2025
Fully reported unofficial results:
🔵 Eileen Higgins - 21,550 (59.3%)
🔴 Emilio Gonzalez - 14,799 (40.7%)
⬅️ 19% swing left from the 2024 presidential election pic.twitter.com/nwnrCnn7Gr
Democrats have become more confident following several election victories in November in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia. And while Republicans won the TN-07 special election in early December, a Democrat lost by only 9 points in a district President Trump won by more than 20 points in 2024.
Gonzalez, a former member of Trump's Homeland Security Department transition team, was endorsed by President Trump, who wrote on Truth Social over the weekend:
Miami’s Mayor Race is Tuesday. It is a big and important race!!! Vote for Republican Gonzalez. He is FANTASTIC! You can also vote today. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
"Tonight’s result is yet another warning sign to Republicans that voters are fed up with their out-of-touch agenda that is raising costs for working families across the country," the DNC's chair, Ken Martin, said in a statement Tuesday night.
Higgins became the first woman ever elected mayor of Miami. A former mechanical engineer and Peace Corps director in Belize, she centered her campaign on affordability and improving the efficiency of local government. Her platform was that of a typical establishment Democrat, as opposed to the multitude of socialist progressives we saw in both NYC and Tennessee.