County Commissioner Eileen Higgins files to run for mayor of Miami
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins has filed to run for mayor of Miami, bringing competition to a candidate field that remains largely open with seven months to go until the city’s November election.
Higgins has just begun another four-year term on the County Commission after she cruised to reelection without opposition last year. If elected mayor in the city of Miami, she would trade her seat on the powerful county board where she is one of 13 votes for a role in the city where she wouldn’t have a vote but would have veto power. The city mayor also has the ability to appoint the Miami City Commission chairperson, or to preside over the five-member commission themselves, and can choose the city manager.
Higgins, a downtown Miami resident, said in an interview Wednesday that more than half of the district she represents as a county commissioner, District 5, is in the city of Miami.
“I live in the city. I love the city,” Higgins said. “I want it to be the best that it can be. That’s why I’m running. I want to restore trust and deliver results.”
While the position of city mayor is officially nonpartisan, Higgins would be the first Democrat to be mayor of Miami in more than a decade if elected. That means Higgins’ candidacy could complicate matters for the other major candidate in the race at this point, former Miami City Commissioner Ken Russell, who is also a Democrat.
Higgins said that when she first ran for County Commission, she was told that, because she’s a Democrat, “no one will vote for you.”
“Well, guess what?” she said. “I’ve been elected three times because I show up for work every day and I work for the people.”
Higgins said that, if elected, she would be an involved mayor — whether that means presenting legislation at City Commission meetings or working behind the scenes to help residents and ensure that policy changes are being implemented. Higgins said she wouldn’t be interested in chairing commission meetings, which the Miami mayor has the option to do.
“I don’t know whether the residents who are sitting around waiting for their permits to repair their porches or fix a leaking roof care where I sit,” Higgins said. “They want me sitting where things happen for them. And there are going to be days where sitting in the office building with the people doing the work might be of more value to the city of Miami than sitting in front of the television cameras while the commission meeting is being televised.”
Higgins enters the race with about $480,000 in her political committee, Rebranding Politics, and the fundraising advantage that comes with being both a county commissioner and the chair of the board’s Transportation Committee. First-quarter fundraising reports aren’t due until April 10, but state records show Rebranding Politics has taken in new dollars since last summer. Top donors to Rebranding Politics include the developers Related, Atlantic Pacific and RFR, according to a Miami Herald tally of donations.
The 60-year-old Democrat won her District 5 County Commission seat in an upset seven years ago when the sitting Republican commissioner, Bruno Barreiro, resigned to run for Congress and backed his wife, Zoraida, as his successor.
The Barreiros locked up the lobbyist and developer dollars in that 2018 contest. But Higgins, then a largely unknown community activist running in her first race, pushed Zoraida Barreiro into a runoff and came out on top in the final vote.
It was a surprise win for Higgins. A Spanish speaker originally from Ohio, Higgins defeated a Cuban American candidate in a heavily Hispanic district. Higgins campaigned as “La Gringa” and enjoyed campaign and financial support from the Democratic Party at a time when President Donald Trump’s first term was seen as hurting Republican candidates in low-turnout elections.
Her 2018 win gave Democrats a one-vote majority on the County Commission that they still enjoy today but would be at risk once Higgins vacates her seat as a candidate for city office.
As a county commissioner, Higgins took on affordable housing and transportation as her main issues.
In Washington, she’s been the county’s main advocate for the federal funding needed to create a commuter rail line on the private tracks that Brightline uses between Miami and Aventura. After fighting transit advocates who were pushing Miami-Dade to drop a fund for a private monorail line to South Beach in favor of extending Metromover, Higgins reversed course in 2022 and adopted the same position.
Her latest financial disclosure lists her net worth at $4.2 million, largely from investment holdings. She lists no employment income beyond the $75,000 that commissioners earn, but earnings from investments boosted her income to about $215,000 in 2023.
After graduating from college in New Mexico, Higgins got her start as an engineer at a manufacturing plant, according to her county biography. She later went into marketing before shifting to the public sector, both as a director in the Peace Corps in Belize and with a post at the U.S. State Department in Mexico.
In 2022, she was briefly a candidate for the congressional seat held by Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar. Two weeks after jumping into the Democratic primary, Higgins dropped out, saying the expected entry of future Democratic nominee Annette Taddeo changed her mind.
The brief congressional run by Higgins also had her squaring off against Russell for the first time. Russell lost the 2022 nomination to Taddeo, who lost that November to Salazar.
Russell said in a statement this week that he and Higgins have “both worked on affordable housing, environment, and good government issues.”
“I’m sure she shares my frustrations with the City of Miami,” Russell said. “Of course, I would prefer to see her continued good works at the county where she was just reelected a couple months ago. Her early resignation to run for City Mayor would leave a crucial hole on that dais.”
Under Florida’s resign-to-run law, Higgins would need to officially resign her post in the county during the city of Miami’s candidate qualifying period in September.
This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 12:00 PM.
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