In his first campaign speech as a presidential candidate, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez portrayed his city as a beacon of prosperity, one that he says has outshined the policies of President Joe Biden.
“Miami’s success and its record of success should not be an outlier in America. It should be commonplace across our country,” Suarez, a Republican who is in his second term, said Thursday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
"In Miami, we didn’t wait for Washington. We chose to lead. While Washington flirts with fiscal disaster and dysfunction, we chose fiscal sanity," he said.
Suarez spoke just hours after he tweeted a video announcing his candidacy. On Wednesday, he filed paperwork for his long-shot bid.
Suarez, whose father was Miami’s first Cuban American mayor, was first elected mayor in 2017, winning 85.8% of the vote. After he was re-elected in 2021, he sought to attract tech entrepreneurs to the city.
He has also championed cryptocurrency, saying last month that he might be the only public official who is regularly being paid in bitcoin.
“Now is the time for our nation to embrace an innovation driven economic policy for the next generation,” Suarez said Thursday.
He also pitched himself as a candidate who can win over more voters for the GOP.
“It’s time for a leader who can connect with segments of our country that Republicans have historically lost, like young voters and urban voters and segments we can make gains with, like Hispanics and suburban women,” he said.
Suarez, 45, is the first Hispanic candidate to jump into GOP primary race this cycle.
While polling shows that former President Donald Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination, the field has expanded with recent announcements by former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
In addition to the uphill battle of joining a crowded field of GOP candidates that already includes two better-known Florida residents — Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis — Suarez could also find himself coming under legal scrutiny.
The Miami Herald reported last week that the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission had opened investigations into allegations that Suarez was paid at least $10,000 a month for a previously undisclosed job helping the subsidiary of the real estate development firm Location Ventures secure permits.
In an interview this week with NBC News' Tom Llamas, Suarez said that his office had "not been contacted by any agency" and that he had cooperated with the county’s Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, which NBC Miami reported had begun investigating the matter.
“I have always distinguished myself by someone who’s never used my public position to benefit any private entity. I never will do that," Suarez said.
