Miami Mayor Francis Suarez entered the crowded Republican presidential primaries this week.
Suarez filed paperwork to launch his presidential bid. Back in March, Suarez visited Iowa, the home of the first caucus. Suarez spoke to the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, which is affiliated with St. Anselm College back in April.
In recent months, Suarez has been active in early presidential states. Back in August, Agenda for America, a group with ties to Suarez, has been running ads in key primary and caucus states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The son of former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, Francis Suarez was first elected to the Miami Commission in 2009. He was reelected without opposition in 2011 and 2015. In 2017, he easily was elected mayor of Miami, a non-partisan office, taking 86 percent of the vote. While he is a registered Republican, Suarez has been very critical of top GOP leaders, refusing to vote for then-President Donald Trump in 2020 or Ron DeSantis in the 2018 gubernatorial election.
In the meantime, SOS America PAC, a group with ties to Suarez, announced a six figure digital ad buy in New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada looking to play up the Miami mayor’s conservative credentials.
“America needs conservative Mayor Francis Suarez for President,” said SOS America PAC Spokesman Chapin Fay. “As our nation faces anti-police and pro-crime Democrat leadership in cities across the nation like Baltimore, Portland and New York City, the achievements of first-generation American Mayor Suarez underscore the need for immediate nationwide adoption of his approach.
“Because of Mayor Suarez’ tough-on-crime and back-the-blue approach, Miami currently has its lowest homicide rate since the 1950’s and the lowest homelessness rate since 2013,” Fay added.
“Under his leadership, the Miami economy is thriving. Miami boasts the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at 1.4 percent and Mayor Suarez’ fiscal policies have achieved the city’s lowest tax rate since the 1960’s, the creation of 8,000 new jobs and an additional $1 billion in wages to Miami’s economy.
“Mayor Francis Suarez’s Miami Model is working, plain and simple. Now is the time for the rest of the country to adopt his successful approach. America needs conservative Mayor Francis Suarez for president,” Fay concluded.
The ad focused more on attacking President Joe Biden and contrasting his record with Suarez’s instead of going after any of the other Republican presidential hopefuls.
“Joe Biden has failed America. Crime. Lawlessness. Unchecked borders. Attacks on law enforcement,” the narrator of the ad says.
Focusing on crime, the narrator insists “Joe Biden’s America” has seen lawlessness. “But conservative Mayor Francis Suarez chose a better path for Miami,” the narrator says before a clip featuring conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson is shown.
“This is a pretty amazing success story,” Carlson says in the ad. “The city of Miami is on track for the lowest crime rate since the 1930s. Francis Suarez is the mayor of Miami, he joins us now. Mr. Mayor thank you for coming on. What exactly are you doing in Miami that America’s other cities are not doing?:
“The success we’ve had in Miami – reducing taxes to their lowest level and seeing double-digit growth, reducing homicide to the lowest per-capita level since 1964 and this year being 30 percent down in homicides,” Suarez responds.
“Mayor Suarez fully funded the police department and equipped police officers to preserve law and order. Under Suarez’s watch, Miami’s crime rate plummeted. America needs a leader ready to act. Francis Suarez will not back down. A father, a husband, and a proud believer in American exceptionalism. Protecting American families, supporting law enforcement, and defending the American Dream. This is Mayor Francis Suarez’s Miami Model,” the narrator says in conclusion.
Still, Suarez drew fire as he entered the race, including from U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. “The truth is that Francis Suarez is a fraud and has zero chance of winning the Republican nomination!” Gimenez insisted.
