Raquel Regalado lost to Carlos Gimenez in 2016 but she’s ready for a 2020 rematch
Raquel Regalado, a former school board member and 2016 county mayoral candidate, said Thursday she plans to run for the Miami-Dade commission seat that Xavier Suarez is vacating in 2020.
That’s the District 7 seat that Carlos Gimenez held before he won his first race for Miami-Dade mayor in 2011. He’s seen as a potential District 7 candidate himself once term-limit rules force him and Suarez to leave their posts two years from now.
Regalado, who lost by 12 points to Gimenez in a November runoff in the 2016 mayoral race, said she made the decision knowing her former rival may be her 2020 opponent, too.
“It will be interesting,” Regalado said of the potential match-up. “The irony is there.”
Gimenez hasn’t publicly said what he wants to do once he leaves office after nine years in the mayor’s office. People who have spoken to him privately say he’s interested in staying in politics. Most speculation has centered on a potential challenge to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez in 2021.
Gimenez was the top opponent of Francis Suarez’s proposed charter change to strengthen the city mayor’s powers, which voters rejected by a wide margin in November. He’s also privately discussed runs for a Congressional seat and for Miami-Dade sheriff when the office switches to an elected post in 2024.
Francis Suarez is the son of Xavier Suarez, who is also a former Miami mayor. Gimenez worked as the city fire chief under the elder Suarez, and later as the city’s manager.
On Thursday, Gimenez remained coy on his old District 7 seat, but referenced the healthy margin he won that area of the county by in 2016. “She didn’t do very well in that district a couple of years ago,” he said. “I’m sure there are others who will throw their hat in the ring as well.”
Regalado, the daughter of Francis Suarez’s predecessor as mayor, Tomás Regalado, served two terms in an elected seat on the school board, representing an area that overlaps with District 7, which includes the southern end of Miami and parts of Coral Gables and South Dade.
“I think it will be a great fit,” said, Regalado, 44, a lawyer and the operations director for a company building a Coconut Grove office tower, Optimum Development, led by a former campaign donor, Ricardo Tabet. “I’m excited.”
Regalado said she would focus on the need to modernize sewage systems in some of the suburban areas of the district and to boost transit services in an area where municipal efforts sometimes conflict with county ones. “They add a trolley, and the county takes away a bus,” Regalado said.
In 2016, Regalado faced criticism for a 2014 foreclosure and enforcement from the county property appraiser’s office over improperly claiming a primary-residence tax break on her former home after moving into a rental following a divorce. She briefly pursued the Republican nomination for the congressional seat held by retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen before abandoning the race, and also backed off running for state Senate this year, too.
Miami-Dade voters approved a two-term limit for commissioners in 2012, and 2020 is the first year that will force exits. Of the seven seats up for election that year on the 13-member board, five incumbents are barred from seeking another term. District 11’s Joe Martinez and District 5’s Eileen Higgins were elected after 2012 and are free to run again.
This story was originally published December 13, 2018 at 11:36 AM.