Daniella Levine Cava easily beats GOP challengers, wins 2nd term as Miami-Dade mayor

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava won reelection Tuesday night by a wide margin, with the first-term Democrat capturing a majority of the vote against a field of mostly Republican challengers to secure another four years as the county’s top administrator.

Levine Cava needed more than 50% of the vote to avoid a November runoff with the second-place finisher, and easily cleared that threshold with 58% after all of the county’s 755 precincts reported results shortly before 10 p.m. in the seven-person contest.

With Democrats and Republicans casting roughly the same amount of votes Tuesday — both parties accounted for a little more than 40% of the ballots cast — Levine Cava’s tally suggested decent support from GOP voters and a strong showing among independents.

“What I see on the streets is that people know me. And they trust me. They know how much I care,” Levine Cava said at a victory party held at Miami’s Ball and Chain Cuban restaurant as she gave a round of interviews in English and Spanish. “I hoped that would translate into people coming out.”

The win secures Levine Cava’s status as a local star in Florida’s Democratic Party amid chatter she may run for governor in 2026. And it frees up her fall to campaign and fundraise for Democrats running for newly created countywide offices of sheriff, tax collector and elections supervisor.

Asked Tuesday if she had interest in running for the governor seat being vacated by Gov. Ron DeSantis in two years, Levine Cava didn’t say no. “I am focused on doing the job that I promised I would do,” she said. “That’s my plan.”

No candidate came close to Levine Cava’s war chest, endorsements or organization in the 2024 race for mayor. She ran as a unifying force in county government, dubbing herself the “collaborator in chief” as she boosted county spending while reducing property-tax rates. She reported endorsements from a bipartisan group of 25 local mayors, plus backing from all of Miami-Dade’s public employee unions.

Levine Cava finished about 35 points ahead of her nearest challenger, Manny Cid, the Republican mayor of Miami Lakes, who had 23% of the vote Tuesday night. Third place went to YouTube host Alexander Otaola, who had 12%, followed by Republican Spanish-language broadcaster Carlos Garin (3%), Shlomo Danzinger, the Republican former mayor of Surfside (2%), trapeze-school owner Miguel Quintero (1%) and valet-parking company owner Eddy Rojas (1%).

The 2024 primaries and countywide races didn’t draw the voter interest Miami-Dade saw in 2020, when multiple well-funded campaigns helped drive turnout in the contest to fill the mayor’s seat being vacated that year by a term-limited Carlos Gimenez. Turnout hit 29% in that August election, compared to 19% this year, based on results posted shortly before 10 p.m.

Levine Cava enjoyed increased name recognition after leading the county response to the Surfside condo collapse in 2021 and presided over four years that saw property values rise and Miami-Dade’s budget benefit from an influx of federal COVID relief and infrastructure dollars. Her 2023 and 2024 budgets included cuts to the county property-tax rates, though inflation meant slightly higher tax bills for the typical homeowner.

Cid tied his campaign to backlash over county tax bills and increases in spending under Levine Cava, and Otaola used his Spanish-language show to blast her for maintenance issues at Miami International Airport. But with less than $1 million raised between them, the two leading challengers couldn’t compete with the nearly $7 million Levine Cava has collected from donors since taking office in 2020.

Cid said with Levine Cava finishing with less than 60% of the vote, the results showed a lack of broad support across Miami-Dade. “It’s not the impressive victory they were hoping for. She outspent me 10 to 1,” Cid said in a telephone interview Tuesday night. “While I congratulate her, the reality is the voices of the middle class matter. That’s what tonight shows. I wish her and her family all the best.”

In a gathering at his Homestead compound, Otaola, an early supporter of Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign, told supporters he didn’t trust the election results.

“If there is no fraud after a recount, I will concede defeat,” Otaola said in Spanish. “But up to this point, we demand a recount vote by vote.” (Roberto Rodríguez, Miami-Dade’s deputy supervisor of elections, told the Miami Herald “the results are what they are,” adding that the elections office is open to the public for people to come see the tabulation process.)

Florida’s Republican Party largely stayed out of this year’s officially nonpartisan race for Miami-Dade mayor. Levine Cava’s robust fundraising and healthy poll numbers made her reelection seem hard to block even in August, when candidates need more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff on Election Day with the second-place finisher.

While Cid, a sitting Republican mayor, waged his race without party backing, Levine Cava enjoyed direct support from the Democratic establishment. She opened joint campaign offices with the statewide party and campaigned with elected Democrats. No Republican member of the county commission backed Cid, while the seven Democrats on the board all endorsed Levine Cava.

Though party affiliations aren’t listed on ballots for county races, internal polls showed Levine Cava performing far better with Democratic voters than Republican ones. That meant Miami-Dade’s shifting partisan makeup was a headwind for her.

In 2020, 41% of Miami-Dade’s voters were Democrats and just 27% were Republicans. Now, Democrats are down to 35% on the voter rolls, and Republicans have climbed up to 31%.

The narrowed Democratic edge played out in turnout this month. In the August 2020 election, Democrats cast 59,000 more votes than Republicans did. This time, the Democratic advantage was fewer than 2,000 votes.

Levine Cava entered politics a decade ago, when she won her first County Commission election representing parts of South Miami-Dade. A former nonprofit executive and a married grandmother with two adult children, the New York-born Levine Cava worked as a lawyer in Florida’s child-welfare system when she first moved to Miami in the 1980s and also ran the state foster-care office in Miami-Dade. She moved to the area to join her husband, Dr. Robert Cava, who was launching his medical practice. She later founded the advocacy and social-services organization then called the Human Services Coalition of Dade County and now called Catalyst Miami.

After six years on the County Commission, Levine Cava in 2020 became the county’s first female mayor, first Jewish mayor and the first Democrat to hold the office in 16 years.

Christian Ulvert, her top campaign consultant, said the Miami-Dade results show Levine Cava has bipartisan appeal.

“She has a brand,” he said. “Voters believe in her and trust her.”

Miami Herald reporter Catherine Odom contributed to this report.

This story was originally published August 20, 2024 at 10:10 PM.