Republican Alina Garcia wins race for Miami-Dade elections supervisor
Florida Rep. Alina Garcia pulled ahead on Tuesday to become Miami-Dade’s first voter-selected supervisor of elections in over a half-century.
The Republican freshman state representative secured her victory over Democratic candidate Juan Carlos “J.C.” Planas, an elections lawyer and former state representative, with nearly 56% of the vote as of 9:30 p.m. Planas had 44% of the vote.
Prior to her election in the Florida House of Representatives in 2022, Garcia worked for numerous elected officials throughout Florida, including former U.S. Rep. David Rivera, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio when he was a state representative, former state Sen. Frank Artiles, Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo and Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo.
Throughout Tuesday, she drove between polling stations to talk with voters. Garcia described Miami-Dade as having one of the “premier elections departments” and said her focus will be on transparency and education for new voters.
“I plan to educate more, communicate more, ensure that we have the best technology so that people can be more connected,” she said outside a polling site at Key Biscayne Community Center on Tuesday morning. “I do want to make it very transparent. I don’t want there to be any mystery with the Department of Elections.”
The supervisor of elections is responsible for guarding the democratic process in the most populous county in Florida, overseeing the county’s federal, state, county and municipal elections. The 134-person elections department operates over 500 polling sites and serves over 1.5 million registered voters, with an operating budget of $43 million.
Previously, candidates for the position were appointed by the county mayor, but in 2018 voters approved a constitutional amendment that made five offices — sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of election, and clerk of court — separate from county government.
This is the first election where voters were able to select a supervisor under the change, and the race was run along partisan lines. While Planas left the Republican Party over disillusionment with Trump in 2019 and became a Democrat following Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020, Garcia was endorsed for the position by the former president. Both candidates, however, praised their predecessor, Elections Supervisor Christina White, and Miami-Dade’s record of fair elections — and said the job should not be compromised by partisan politics.
“It will not be partisan,” Garcia said. “I’m here to serve the people. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years.”
In June, White announced that she wouldn’t run for election after leading the office since 2015. Garcia said she decided to run after she was encouraged to do so by colleagues in the Florida Republican Party.
Garcia was endorsed by Rubio, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, chairman of the Florida Republican Party Evan Power and Trump.
“Alina Garcia has done an incredible job in the Florida State Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in April. “Now, Alina is running to be Miami-Dade’s Supervisor of Elections, and will work hard to secure our Elections and protect Voters’ Rights.”
Garcia told the Miami Herald that she thought that White “does a great job.” Asked about Trump’s claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, she said that she cannot “opine” about other states, but in Florida, the election was fair.
“I can tell you about the state of Florida and Miami Dade County. I think that here, you know, everything worked perfectly well, and we had good results,” she said. “And there was no rampant fraud.”
Garcia was born in Cuba and left for Miami in 1961 as a toddler with her mother and brother. Her father had left the country earlier, she said, after threats to his life. She grew up in Little Havana.
She has 11 grandchildren — some of whom were casting their first ballots when they voted for their grandmother this election. One of her grandsons, Lucas Fernandez, stood outside a polling site at Key Biscayne Community Center on Tuesday.
“We support her,” Fernandez, 20, said of Garcia’s family.
At 11:30 a.m., he was already confident about the outcome: “She’s going to win, 100%.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 8:41 PM.
