Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: DEMOCRAT Eileen Higgins won the Miami mayor’s race on December 9, defeating a Republican endorsed by President Donald Trump to end her party’s nearly threedecade losing streak and give Democrats a boost in one of the last electoral battles ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Higgins, 61, will be the first woman to lead the city of Miami. She spoke frequently in the Hispanic-majority city about Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying she has heard of many people in Miami who were worried about family members being detained. She beat Trump-backed candidate Emilio Gonzalez. Higgins led the Republican by about 19 percentage points.The victory provides Democrats with some momentum heading into a high-stakes midterm election.
Republicans in Florida have found strong support from voters with heritage from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, because they likened some members of the Democratic party’s progressive wing with politicians from the governments they fled. Trump and other GOP members have tapped into those sentiments over the past eight years. However, some local Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated since November’s elections when Democrats scored wins in New Jersey and Virginia, where both winning gubernatorial candidates performed strongly with nonwhite voters.
