Who is Francis Suarez? The Miami mayor mounting a long shot presidential campaign

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is a longshot candidate for the Republican nomination for president. That's just fine with him.

Suarez filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday and formally declared his candidacy for president on Thursday.

"It is time for a next generation leader who has the vision to lead and the character to connect with everyone by looking at them in the eyes and listening to them. Not shouting at them and lecturing them," Suarez said in a speech Thursday at the Reagan Library in California.

"And that is why just yesterday, I filed paperwork to run for President of the United States of America," he added.

But who is Suarez and how did he get to the national stage? His backstory as a climber with politics in his blood helps explain why he's making this national leap.

Son of a former mayor

Suarez is the son of Xavier Suarez, who was the mayor of Miami in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 1998, however, Xavier Suarez was removed from office after a Florida judge ruled that the mayoral election was tainted with fraud.

Decades later, when the younger Suarez ran for mayor for the first time in 2013, his campaign attracted controversy over absentee ballot requests made from a staffer's computer. The incident led public corruption detectives to search the home of a staffer.

Suarez disputed the allegations, claiming his campaign had permission from voters to make absentee ballot requests on their behalf.

Still, he dropped out of the race that year before Election Day, citing the need to be with his wife in the early stages of pregnancy — but conceding “a lot of it is mistakes we made, and I’ve learned from it."

In 2017, he ran again and won his election with 86% of the vote, or almost 22,000 votes. In 2021, he was re-elected with almost 79% of the vote, again about 22,000 votes.

Trump indictment spotlights Miami

Ahead of his campaign announcement this week, Suarez was in the spotlight, out front as Miami organized security ahead of former President Donald Trump's Tuesday arraignment on federal charges.

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Suarez and the city's police commissioner held a press conference the day before the court appearance, highlighting their efforts to protect citizens and protesters.

However, the bulk of the security efforts were actually overseen by Miami-Dade County, whose mayor and police forces have more power to oversee security in the area than the mayor of the city of Miami.

Miami Mayor Suarez says city is ‘prepared’ ahead of Trump arraignment

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"This is a great country. We’re in a beautiful city. And we have protests many times, the Cuban dictatorship, a variety of different incidents in our history. And we always do it in a way that’s respectful, that doesn’t create conflicts or clashes," Suarez told NBC News' Tom Llamas in an interview ahead of the indictment.

Under investigation

The Miami Herald reported last month that Suarez was paid over $170,000 by a local developer who received waivers from the city regarding zoning issues in a $70 million Coconut Grove development project.

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Later, the Herald reported that Suarez is now under investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, in coordination with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office. The company that paid Suarez (Location Ventures) is under investigation now by the FBI, the Herald also reported.

In response to the investigation opened by the state’s attorney’s office and Ethics Commission, a spokesperson for Mayor Suarez’s office released a statement, saying, “The Mayor is looking forward to fully cooperating with the ethics commission to expose the truth and demonstrate that this is nothing but a frivolous smear campaign launched by The Miami Herald.”

Suarez himself echoed this in his interview with Llamas, saying, "I’ve been a public official for 13 years, I’ve never had any issues. There’s never been ever a question as to my integrity. I’ve been a working councilman and a working mayor throughout that entire time. And I find it interesting that that the our local newspaper, you know, just a couple of weeks before I’m set to make a big announcement, all of a sudden uncovers this troublesome story."

"Look, I have always distinguished myself by someone who’s never used my public position to benefit any private entity," he added.

Shortly after Suarez officially entered the race this week, he also came under fire from Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., the former mayor of Miami-Dade County.

Gimenez told Fox News on Thursday, “Right now, he’s under FBI investigation for doing some outside work with a developer. I mean, he’s got all kinds of trouble and again, he fools all kinds of people into thinking he’s a lot bigger than what he really is and again, I wouldn’t really waste my time with him, he’s just — he’s a fraud in my estimation.”

Gimenez has endorsed Trump for president.