Voters elect Sabina Covo as next District 2 commissioner in the city of Miami
Voters in the city of Miami’s coastal neighborhoods elected former journalist Sabina Covo to fill the District 2 seat for the next eight months.
A political newcomer who will hold office for the first time, she is the first woman elected to the District 2 seat since the city was organized under single-member districts more than two decades ago. A Colombian-American, she is also the first Hispanic person to win the seat.
Covo, a former Spanish-language television news reporter and communications professional who lives in Coconut Grove, won in a special election that was held on Monday due to city requirements for filling a vacant commission seat. The job of representing District 2, which stretches from Coconut Grove north through Morningside, has been unfilled since former commissioner Ken Russell resigned Dec. 29 because he ran for Congress last year.
“This is a start for a great journey,” she told the Miami Herald as she celebrated the results at The Taurus in Coconut Grove. “I am thankful for my constituents that actually believed that I was the best person. I’m thankful for my team and for my family. Without them, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Covo, 43, is expected to be sworn in Saturday, the day after election results are finalized on Friday. She will hold the office until November, completing the remainder of Russell’s term. District 2 voters will have an election again in November.
Read more: Five takeaways from Sabina Covo’s victory in Miami’s District 2 election
Covo is the second woman elected to the commission in 15 months, and she could shift the dynamic of the commission. She positioned herself as an outsider with no connections to the other four commissioners, carrying no endorsements from sitting elected officials or the city’s large police and fire unions.
She did receive the endorsements of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party and Russell, her predecessor.
A few prominent Miami-Dade Democrats joined Covo’s celebration Monday night, including Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins and former Florida state senator Annette Taddeo. They cheered and posed for pictures with her as Taddeo waved a Colombian flag.
“I think Sabina is a breath of fresh air,” Levine Cava told the Herald. “She’s going to be champion for the neighborhoods, for the people.”
Covo said the development of more workforce housing is an immediate priority, among others.
“We need to make sure that we do small steps towards climate resiliency, and community engagement is going to be key,” she said. So one of the things that I really want to do is have someone ready to help each of the neighborhoods in my district. My district is extremely diverse. And we need to make sure that people are heard and will be served.”
With about 29% of the vote, Covo won the most votes out of a field of 13. Under the city charter, the person with the most votes wins in a special election to fill a vacant seat, so there will be no runoff.
Despite a large field that included candidates from Brickell and Downtown, Covo’s victory continues the trend of the District 2 commissioner being a Coconut Grove resident
Attorney Eddy Leal, who took leave from his job working in Mayor Francis Suarez’s office, came in second place with about 21% of the vote. James Torres, president of the Downtown Neighbors Alliance, came in third place, and former Miami-Dade judge Martin Zilber came in fourth.
Turnout
One commissioner can wield considerable power on the five-person commission. Yet only a fraction of District 2’s registered voters decided the election.
Of the more than 80,000 residents who live in District 2, about 49,000 are active and eligible voters. Of that, about 6,200, or about 12.7%, participated in the special election. The majority of people voted by mail, with about 3,600 ballots received by the elections department. About 850 people voted early. About 1,800 voted on Monday.
Despite being a special election held on a Monday in February, the turnout nearly matched the most recent regular District 2 election. By comparison, a total of 6,336 voters participated in the regular District 2 election in November 2019, or about 11%. In 2015, 6,598 voted, or about 17%.
This story was originally published February 27, 2023 at 7:43 PM.
