There's a new mayor in Miami--a Democrat, for a change. Is this the start of something big?

News and views for thoughtful Floridians and other discerning Americans

That thunk you just heard was Donald Trump throwing a quarter-pounder against the West Wing wall.

He famously hurls his cheeseburgers* when he doesn’t get his way, and he just didn’t get his way bigley in Miami.

Trump, along with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican headliners like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, went all-in on yesterday’s election in Miami, hoping their influence would stop their party’s hemorrhaging in the polls.

It didn’t work.

Despite backing the Republican candidate for mayor in Florida’s most famous—and second largest—city, a Democrat won.

She’s Eileen Higgins, the first Democrat elected mayor in Miami in nearly three decades, a non-Hispanic (although she is fluent in español), and the first woman to become mayor in the city’s history.

Her victory extends a winning streak in recent weeks in which Democrats have been outperforming their Republican opponents nationwide, which could portend a major shift in politics heading into the midterm elections.

At least Democrats hope so.

Said Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee: “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.”

Even some Republicans agree, as NPR reports:

U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican whose district is being targeted by Democrats and includes the city of Miami, called the elections … a “wake-up call.”

“The Hispanic vote is not guaranteed,” Salazar said in a video posted on X last month. “Hispanics married President Trump, but they are only dating the GOP.”

The City of Miami, one of 34 municipalities in the sprawling Miami-Dade metroplex, is nearly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans in terms of voter registration, and it is majority Hispanic.

But there was nothing close in Higgins’ victory in which she stomped her G.O.P. opponent, Emilio Gonzalez, by 18 points.

While political prognosticators caution that a local election does not foretell a national trend, there are building indications that Trump is losing support among Hispanics in Florida, a demographic segment key to his re-election victory.

Why?

Well, it may not help his—or the Republicans’—brand that ICE goons are rampaging around the country where any Hispanic-looking person, whether here legally or not, may be subject to arrest.

It also dims the enthusiasm of some immigrants here legally to learn that Trump wants to deport them “back where they came from”—and yes, all you Venezuelan refugees here in Florida, he’s talking about you.

And Alligator Alcatraz, right on the Miami-Dade/Collier County border. Stories of mistreatment of prisoners in the federal gulag run by DeSantis don’t generate warm and fuzzy feelings, either.

But the overarching issue, as it so often is, is the economy, including the cost of health care, the price of groceries, autos, insurance—all of it.

So, while the political experts may be right to point out that there are limits to how much you can read into local elections like this, there is one factor, right now, that is unmistakably working in Democrats’ favor:

Momentum.

*In the interest of accuracy, it should be noted that when Donald Trump throws a tantrum—including his lunch—it isn’t necessarily just cheeseburgers. This from the never-wrong internet:

According to testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Donald Trump threw his lunch against the wall in the West Wing dining room in December 2020, not specifically a cheeseburger. The incident occurred after he became enraged by an Associated Press interview in which Attorney General William Barr publicly dismissed claims of widespread election fraud.

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J.C. Bruce, journalist and author, is the founder of Tropic Press. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and his native Florida.

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