‘Don’t let anything stop you.’ Domond works retail, pursues doctorate, runs for mayor.

Ludmilla Domond hasn’t run for office before, and she’s on the ballot for Miami-Dade County mayor in 2020. The first-generation Haitian-American doesn’t have money or time to burn, as she works retail and as a real estate broker while pursuing a post-graduate degree.

Why stand as a candidate for the highest elected office in Miami-Dade and watch the four leading candidates amass a war chest with $1,000 to spend for every $1 you’ve raised?

“The message I really want people to hear and see is: Don’t let anything stop you,” Domond said during a recent interview in downtown Miami. “Being a nobody, that no one knows — I’m going to go out there and do it.”

Of the six people on the ballot for the Aug. 18 non-partisan primary to replace a term-limited Carlos Gimenez as mayor, the 42-year-old Nordstrom employee has the fewest connections to politics. Monique Nicole Barley, the other first-time candidate for mayor, is the daughter of former state representative Roy Hardemon, and was a campaign manager for his House race in 2016. Domond said this is her first brush with the political arena.

She said she’s running to push affordable housing and to expand public transit. One of two Black candidates in the race, Domond brought her experience to 2020 debates as the issues of police reform and racial justice gained new attention after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“I have a 16-year-old Black boy,” she said during the Miami Foundation’s mayoral forum in May. “I want to make sure by the time he gets to my age, he feels he belongs in Miami-Dade County ... I want him to know our police department is here for him.”

Domond said she would try to expand empathy on both sides of the police-reform debate — reassuring residents that police are there to help, and forcing officers to understand the limits that come with their authority.

“I, as a Black woman in Miami-Dade County, should not be afraid to talk to the police. And I’m not,” she said. Domond said she wants “to show both sides how to actually work with each other ... We need the police force to know they are here for the people. And the gun does not give you the right to use that authority to scare the people.”

Known as “Milla” to her friends and family, the divorced mother of one calls herself a “forever student” as she works full time and pursues a doctorate in ethical leadership through St. Thomas University. A longtime Republican, she holds a real estate brokerage license in Florida, lives in a condo she owns near the Ives Estates area in North Miami-Dade, and works for the Nordstrom store at the Aventura Mall.

Her campaign account shows nearly $6,000 raised, with more than $1,000 from individual donors and the rest personal loans from herself. That puts her well ahead of the $1,000 raised by Barley, and provided Domond the cash for the basics of a candidate’s task: a website, fliers and campaign signs.

It’s also a measure of the different sphere of campaigning her established rivals inhabit. Through the middle of July, candidates Alex Penelas (a former county mayor) and Esteban “Steve” Bovo, Daniella Levine Cava and Xavier Suarez (each a sitting county commissioner) reported more than $5 million cash on hand.

The campaign biography for Domond notes she has a master’s in pastoral studies from St. Thomas, and describes her as a “lover of Jesus Christ” eager to share her story about the role faith has played in her life.

Domond said she hasn’t decided who she’ll vote for yet for president, and said President Donald Trump has “areas of priorities he has to work on — starting with his mouth.”

She said her family left their home country of Haiti in 1986 for the United States. Her father lives in Miami-Dade, too. Raised by her father and stepmother, Domond said her mother was murdered by gunfire in Haiti in 1995.

“Gun violence is an issue that’s dear to me,” she said. Domond also said her own experience with domestic violence prompted her to volunteer with a foster-care program in Miami-Dade.

At work at the Aventura Mall, Domond is known as a cheerful, dedicated sales person with a knack for seeing the bright side, coworker Janice Bernstein said.

“She’s good under pressure,” said Berstein, who described Domond as unusually supportive in an industry where the competition for customers can be tense. “I think she’ll fight the good fight.”

For Domond, her time on a countywide ballot represents a dive into the public spotlight and a chance to show that a “nobody” can be heard.

“I never thought I’d be in politics,” she said in a recent interview. “That should tell you why I’m running: I have nothing to lose.”

The Miami Herald has written articles about other candidates for Miami-Dade mayor, and has more to come. Click here to read about Esteban “Steve” Bovo, Daniella Levine Cava, Alex Penelas, Xavier Suarez, and first-time candidates Monique Nicole Barley and Ludmilla Domond.

This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 4:24 PM.