Dynasty city: How three Miami families may extend their decades of political power
.jpg "Three families have held office in Miami for decades — and 2025 could extend that tradition. The nearly unbroken streak of Carollos, Suarezes and Regalados began in 1979, when Joe Carollo won his first election to the Miami City Commission, and runs through the present day. This illustration shows the time in office for each member of the family, with darker colors indicating more than one person in power at the same time.")
For decades, three names have defined Miami politics: Carollo, Regalado and Suarez.
Mayor Francis Suarez holds an office his father, Xavier Suarez, first won in the 1980s. Brothers Joe and Frank Carollo have alternated places in the same City Commission seat for the past 16 years. A son of former commissioner and mayor Tomás Regalado, Jose, is running for his father’s old seat on the City Commission, eight years after another son tried to win a different seat.
This year, all three of Miami’s dominant political families could be newly elected again. Jose Regalado is running in a contested special election on June 3, and Frank Carollo has already filed to run for a City Commission seat in November. Meanwhile, Joe Carollo, a former mayor and sitting commissioner, might run for mayor again. And with Francis Suarez reaching the end of his term this fall, his father is considering campaigning to again fill the mayoral seat.
A 2025 win by any member of the three families could extend a remarkable statistic in Miami politics: Since 1979, there has only been one year without a Carollo, a Regalado or a Suarez in city office.
“Nobody should be on the dais forever. And nobody’s last name should be on the dais forever,” said Horacio Aguirre, a longtime Miami activist who said he supports stricter term limits. “A democracy needs new people.”
While bemoaned by some, the staying power of the three families could be the defining thread of Miami politics this year as voters head to the polls on Tuesday to fill the vacancy left by the late Commissioner Manolo Reyes and again in November for the city’s general election.
Here is a look at Miami’s three leading political families and what their futures may hold.
The Carollos
City Commissioner Joe Carollo may be the most resilient politician in Miami history, with a career in elected office that began in 1979 and continues to this day.
Carollo, a former county police employee, was 24 when he first won a seat on the City Commission. Seventeen years later, he became mayor in 1996. After returning to office in 2017, he’s now 70 and finishing his most recent second term as a city commissioner. Under the current rules, mayors and city commissioners in the city of Miami can only serve two consecutive terms, though they can return to office at a later time.
Joe Carollo spent decades earning his reputation as a political brawler, clashing with Miami bureaucrats and raising the specter of leftist politics and communist ties to get his way. At a 1983 press conference that then-Mayor Maurice Ferré had called to trumpet getting Carollo’s endorsement, Carollo instead used his time at the mic to bash Ferré.
One of Carollo’s boldest conspiracy theories turned out to be true: that ballot fraud had cost him the 1997 mayoral election against Xavier Suarez. An appellate court later agreed, handing Carollo the remainder of the four-year term as the city’s mayor in 1998. By the end of that term, protesters were throwing bananas at City Hall — their way of calling Miami a banana republic — after Carollo, a Cuban American, forced out the police chief for not telling him about the federal raid to return Elián González to his father in Cuba.
More than 20 years later, Carollo remains a lightning rod in city politics. He’sfaced years of litigation tied to grievances with the operators of the Ball & Chain nightclub in Little Havana, repeated clashes with downtown residents over his controversial park installations and his recent removal as chairman of the Bayfront Park Management Trust.
But this could also be a landmark year for the Carollo political brand if voters elect Joe as mayor again and his younger brother to the commission. It would be the first time the two served at the same time, rather than keeping the same seat politically warm for each other.
Frank Carollo, now 55, won the District 3 seat in 2009 and held it for two consecutive terms. Joe Carollo won the election to replace him in 2017. This year, the younger brother has filed to replace the older brother. If Frank wins in November and gets reelected in 2029, a Carollo will have held the District 3 seat for 24 straight years.
A certified public accountant, Frank followed his brother into politics butdidn’t inherit all of his rivalries. While Tomás Regalado said in a recent interview that “people don’t really like” Joe Carollo, he had kind words for “Frankie” Carollo. “He served with me for eight years, and we have a good relationship,” he said.
In “Miami Dynasty,” a book written by former Mayor Xavier Suarez, Frank is cast as the preferred brother: “On the city commission dais, he acts professionally enough; his mumbled tirades are not nearly as vitriolic as his older brother’s used to be.”
When Joe launched his comeback campaign for the City Commission to replace his term-limited brother in 2017, Frank initially declined to tell the Herald if he would be endorsing his brother or an existing candidate he had already praised, Zoraida Barreiro.
Asked about his lengthy tenure, Joe Carollo pointed out that he’s been in elected office for less than half of the 46 years since he won his first City Commission race. He also noted he spent 16 consecutive years out of office, from 2001, when he lost his bid for reelection as mayor, to 2017, when he returned to City Hall as the District 3 commissioner.
And, Carollo said, “I didn’t run based on anybody’s last name.” As a point of comparison, he repeatedly took aim at special election candidate Jose Regalado, who Carollo said is “only running because of his last name and what others have accomplished.”
In a text message, Frank Carollo said so-called dynasties aren’t unique to politics but “exist in every profession” and that “it appears that it is a natural occurrence that members of the same families converge to the same industries, professions, job fields, etc.”
It’s true that the city of Miami hardly has a monopoly on political families in Miami-Dade County. Mario Díaz-Balart served in Congress at the same time as his brother, the late Lincoln Díaz-Balart. Alex Díaz de la Portilla, a former Miami city commissioner, is the brother of a former Miami-Dade County commissioner and of a former school board member. Kendrick Meek succeeded his mother, the late Carrie Meek, in Congress.
But none of those families have had such extended elected runs through a single government — much less seen their political careers entwined with other rival families.
Joe Carollo’s interest in another run for mayor could set up a ‘90s flashback if Xavier Suarez joins the race, too. The two were rivals in the 1997 mayor’s election, which Carollo, the incumbent, initially lost to Suarez. That put Suarez back in office for four months, but his second tour as mayor ended in March 1998 when the appeals court flipped the results. Carollo was installed as mayor and went on to serve in that role until 2001.
The Suarezes
For now, the Suarez family is the only question mark for Miami’s 2025 elections. With Francis Suarez termed-out as mayor, his father is testing the waters for a sixth run at the mayor’s office.
In a recent text blast, Xavier Suarez, 76, asked a group of likely supporters: “Can I engage you to collect 20 or more names of city of Miami residents who might be inclined to vote for me in the upcoming November mayoral election? Thanks in advance, Xavier.”
In an interview, the elder Suarez said he expects to make a decision by July.
“I don’t know if I’m running,” he said. “I’m notoriously bad at fundraising. We’ll have to see where I am by June 30th.”
Suarez dominated Miami politics in the 1980s, when he became the first Cuban American elected mayor. He won praise for wading into a crowd of outraged residents after the police shooting of Black motorcyclist Clement Lloyd and scorn for refusing to greet Nelson Mandela on a Miami visit, citing his praise of Fidel Castro. A late-night visit to a constituent over a letter critical of the mayor brought Suarez national attention.
Xavier Suarez embraces the idea of political synergy between father and son. In his 2024book “Miami Dynasty: How Father and Son Shaped the Magic City,” he said he had considered running for Congress as an independent in 2018 but dropped the idea, in part to avoid “abandoning Francis,” a Republican who has been mayor since 2017. A Miami-Dade County commissioner at the time, Xavier Suarez said he wanted to continue helping his son’s administration from County Hall.
In 2020, when Francis was enjoying national attention as a young leader tackling the COVID crisis in his city, Xavier launched a failed campaign for county mayor that leaned on his son’s popularity. The billboard that Xavier’s political committee put on I-95 that year featured photos of the father and son under the slogan “Two Generations of Leaders.”
Three years later, buoyed by his viral “How can I help?” offer to Silicon Valley tech companies, Francis Suarez invoked his father’s example in the launch video for a brief run in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
“My dad taught me that you get to choose your battles, and I am choosing the biggest one of my life,” Suarez narrated over footage of himself outside his childhood home.
What does Suarez, 47, think about the possibility of his father running to succeed him? The mayor did not respond to an interview request.
The elder Suarez said the term “dynasty” makes for an intriguing book premise but probably isn’t appealing to voters.
“It won’t be my slogan, I’ll tell you that,” he said.
The Regalados
Though the one family not currently in Miami City Hall, the Regalados have two members in power in county government: Property Appraiser Tomás Regalado and his daughter, County Commissioner Raquel Regalado.
Tomás’ son and Raquel’s brother Jose Regalado, 40, is running for the vacant City Commission seat his father gave up in 2009 to run for city mayor.
Raquel Regalado, 50, said she has “run every Regalado campaign since 1995.” Her father, now 78, was first elected to the Miami City Commission in 1996. Another sibling, Tommy Regalado, made a run at politics in 2017 but lost his Miami City Commission race that year to Joe Carollo.
The father and daughter shared a spot on the November 2024 ballot when Tomás was elected as property appraiser and Raquel won a second term as a Miami-Dade County commissioner — occupying the same County Commission seat once held by Xavier Suarez.
Raquel is now running her brother’s campaign for the June 3 special election. She said interest in the public sector comes naturally for her family.
“I can’t speak to the other dynasties — they’re all different,” she said. “But in our household — both before my father was elected and after — we talked about government all the time.”
The Regalados see the District 4 race as a proxy battle with Joe Carollo, who is backing Jose Regalado’s opponent, Ralph Rosado, in the June 3 special election. Carollo’s political committee, Miami First, is sending out Spanish-language attack ads against Jose, calling him “an opportunist benefiting from his last name and political connections.”
“Jose is running against Joe Carollo,” Tomás Regalado said. “Carollo is throwing everything at the whole family.”
Before deciding to run for county property appraiser, Tomás Regalado had floated his own comeback bid for Miami mayor in 2025. More recently, speculation has centered on Raquel Regalado eyeing City Hall. In a recent interview, she declined to rule out a run for city mayor this year.
“I’m going to get through this election and let’s see,” she said of her brother’s contest. Asked if it would be appropriate for her to serve as Miami mayor while her brother held a commission seat, Regalado responded: “That would be a bit much.”
The dynasties question: boost or handicap?
The dynasty theme will likely be an attack line for other candidates in Miami’s mayor race this year. Eileen Higgins, a Miami-Dade County commissioner, is running as an outsider to city politics.
She used “dynasty” as an attack line in the 2018 campaign for her county seat, when she defeated Zoraida Barreiro, the wife of her predecessor, Bruno Barreiro. In that race, she also beat Alex Díaz de la Portilla, whose brother, Miguel Díaz de la Portilla, was a county commissioner in the 1990s. Higgins sent out an attack mailer against her opponents in 2018 with the headline “Aren’t You Tired of all the Political Dynasties,” with photos of the Díaz de la Portillas and Barreiros and then-President Donald Trump with two of his children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr.
Another candidate for mayor, former city manager Emilio Gonzalez, is also trying to run on the fresh-face mantle he thinks will appeal to a dispirited electorate.
“I think the voters here are pretty much beaten down, which is why we get so little turnout,” he said. “If you have the same people always running and they deliver no results or poor results, people say: ‘Well, then, why do I vote?’”
But Miami’s window for repeat political comebacks could soon come to an end. There’s now a push underway to rewrite city election law to cut short the kind of lifelong political career currently available in Miami.
While the current limit of two consecutive terms for elected officials is forcing Joe Carollo to give up his City Commission seat this year, it doesn’t prevent Frank Carollo from running for the seat again — eight years after term limits required him to leave the commission in 2017.
But legislation sponsored by Commissioner Damian Pardo, who was elected in 2023 on a reform platform, could prevent politicians from running for multiple terms the way the Carollos have.
Under Pardo’s proposed referendum language, the city’s elected officials would be subjected to “lifetime” term limits, capping them at two terms as mayor and two terms as commissioner. The proposal specifies that no person can be elected or appointed to either position more than two times each, meaning — in theory — that even one day in elected office could count as a term. The caps would also apply retroactively.
While still up for debate, the current language would likely blow up the possibility of the Carollo and Suarez electoral streaks continuing in 2025 if voters adopted the proposed change to the city charter in November and the new caps survived a potential court challenge. Xavier Suarez has served multiple terms as mayor, and Joe Carollo’s time as the city’s top leader also spanned two terms. As a former two-term commissioner, Frank Carollo, would also likely be blocked from a return to the dais by the Pardo legislation.
“We want to have more people at the table,” Pardo told the Herald in March. “We want to have different people at the table.”
This story was originally published May 29, 2025 at 6:31 PM.
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