Florida’s getting hot, and it’s not just because of the weather.
They now host three candidates from their state vying for the GOP presidential nomination.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s announcement roll-out has been a little rocky. He experienced glitches on his “Twitter Spaces” launch with Elon Musk, while he hasn’t topped 30% in any poll against former President Donald Trump, whose been hovering around 60.
So the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, sees an opening.
Valuetainment called it when I predicted Suarez would be jumping into the race over three months ago. Keep reading us for more accurate electoral tea-leaves.
He’s known as a more classic, liberal Republican, and he’s no fan of his state’s hard-right, conservative governor. He condemned DeSantis’s idea to investigate election fraud in Florida saying he doesn’t believe there was anything worth looking at. That’s code for “Trump lost the election in 2020.”
And Suarez was aggressive in shutting much of Miami down during the pandemic, publicly taking DeSantis to task for not doing the same state wide. As late as May 2020, all non essential business were shut down in his city, and he even issued a stay at home curfew order in the first few weeks of the pandemic. Suarez said in a Business Insider Interview that he had “second guesses” for almost all of DeSantis’s covid actions.
He also won’t be fighting any divisive culture wars, while seems to relish having DeSantis as his punching bag. On the Florida governor’s aggressive efforts on Disney, Suarez said, “it looks like it’s spite or maybe potentially a personal vendetta, which has cost the state now potentially 2,000 jobs in a billion-dollar investment.”
And then, he did the unthinkable. Suarez compared DeSantis with President Joe Biden. Ouch. “I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that Joe Biden does. He canceled the Keystone pipeline out of spite that cost Americans 42,000 jobs. And you know, one thing DeSantis has in common with the president is he hasn’t spent much time in the private sector. And I wonder if that influences his thinking on some of this stuff.”
Suarez won re-election in Miami with 78% of the vote. While he was harsh with covid, his aim to eliminate all taxes in Miami, and his encouragement of Bitcoin development, may get Miami to become the new Silicone Valley. Suarez has certainly said that is his intention. And he’s invited Elon Musk to move Twitter to Miami, an idea that the tech scion has flirted with.
In addition to good looks, and a rise in population and industry in his city, his bitcoin advocacy gives him a niche. Suarez even was a keynote speaker at a Miami bitcoin conference where he said the next president must be pro-bitcoin and that the currency should be “implemented in every aspect of society.”
The recipe for victory seems to be a far off one, but it’s there. Get the tech enthusiasts on board, get the 40% of people not voting for Trump, and he can sell his moderate credentials as someone who is level-headed, thus most likely to beat Biden. Plus, he’ll be bringing a lot of the hispanic vote along with him. Don’t count the guy out. Because he announced, he’ll be getting compared with DeSantis frequently. Suarez seems more likable and less stiff, which may get voters to wonder aloud, “well, why not that third Florida man for president?”
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