Bad blood and political rivalries: Four key moments from Miami mayoral debate
Six of the 13 contenders for Miami mayor faced off in a heated two-hour debate Tuesday night, with just weeks to go before voters cast ballots in the city’s most competitive mayoral race in over 20 years.
Joe Carollo, Ken Russell, Alex Díaz de la Portilla, Eileen Higgins, Xavier Suarez and Emilio González went toe-to-toe during the event at the Hyatt Regency downtown, answering questions that covered everything from climate change and housing affordability to corruption and legal fees for elected officials.
Here are four key moments from the debate moderated by CBS Miami anchor Eliott Rodriguez, in partnership with the Downtown Neighbors Alliance.
Russell vs. Díaz de la Portilla
Russell and Díaz de la Portilla — who overlapped for about three years on the City Commission in the recent past — spent much of Tuesday night’s debate at each other’s throats. The jabs started before the first question was even asked, when CBS’s Rodriguez accidentally introduced Russell as Díaz de la Portilla.
Rodriguez then quipped that the two “look a little bit alike” to which Russell retorted: “Before and after.”
From there, it was gloves off. And because Díaz de la Portilla was positioned directly to Russell’s left, he typically answered questions immediately after Russell. At one point in the evening, Rodriguez even remarked that it was “getting harder and harder” for him to get the debate back to the other half of the stage, where Higgins, Suarez and González were standing.
In response to a question about decorum and civility on the City Commission, for example, Russell said he would serve as chairman of the meetings if elected. The outgoing mayor, Francis Suarez, has not done so, ceding the role to one of the five city commissioners.
“The mayor is the presiding officer of the commission, and when they forgo that responsibility, they leave the kids to play,” Russell said. “The teacher is not there, the food fights begin.”
Díaz de la Portilla responded that Russell, who resigned from the City Commission to run for Congress in late 2022, “had a little hissy fit” at his final commission meeting before leaving office.
“You are not going to be the leader of anything or the adult in the room,” Díaz de la Portilla said. “You were the child from the beginning, OK?”
Russell bit back: “I did leave 10 months early on an eight-year term, but I didn’t leave in handcuffs like you.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Díaz de la Portilla from office in September 2023, the day after he was arrested on money laundering and bribery charges that were later dropped. Russell was one of the witnesses in the case.
In response, Díaz de la Portilla called Russell a “liar” who “perjured yourself under oath.”
Russell vs. Higgins
While Russell spent much of Tuesday night fending off attacks from Díaz de la Portilla, he was also on the offensive against Higgins, who is the only other establishment Democrat in the race and arguably Russell’s biggest competition.
In response to a question about housing affordability, Higgins said that as a county commissioner, she’s “built and opened 4,000 units of affordable and workforce housing” and that she has thousands more “in the pipeline.”
Russell countered that those housing units are “not for us,” saying the county is “using the transit line to usurp the zoning of the city of Miami to actually allow for massive development at thousands of dollars a month for people who are not our residents.”
“That’s not an affordable housing solution,” Russell added.
Russell also needled Higgins for her role as vice chair of Miami’s Downtown Development Authority, an agency that has come under fire by some downtown residents, and said she is “complicit in the pile of rubble that we now call the Coconut Grove Playhouse.” (The county has laid out a controversial plan for renovating the historic building, which had a partial collapse earlier this year.)
Most of Higgins’ answers stayed focused on the issues rather than her opponents — up until her closing remarks, when she took aim at the other candidates onstage.
“If you want someone that spends their days Twittering and TikToking, that’ll be on the ballot,” Higgins said, likely referring to Russell, who has a penchant for social media.
“If you want someone that spends all their time in court due to scandals and corruption, you’ll find that on the ballot,” Higgins continued. “If you want someone that’s already mismanaged the city, you’ll find that on the ballot, too.”
“Is that me?” asked González, the former city manager. Higgins ignored his question and went on to describe herself as “something different” than the other options on the table.
“There’ll be no yelling, there’ll be no drama,” Higgins said. “It’ll be quiet, it’ll be determined, and it will get results.”
González vs. Carollo vs. the crowd
González, who positioned himself as the “common sense guy” who can restore the city’s relationship with Tallahassee and Washington D.C., got into a heated debate with Carollo, the longtime city commissioner and former mayor, when talking about the city’s efforts to postpone the election to 2026.
González successfully sued the city, with two courts finding the city’s election date change to be unconstitutional. Carollo was one of two city commissioners to vote against the election date change, and he filed paperwork with the court as an interested party in support of González’s lawsuit.
While the two are on the same page about the election date change issue, Carollo took the opportunity to sling mud at González, pointing out that González’s political committee, Mission Miami, received $500,000 in contributions from an affiliate of the asset management firm that employs González.
“Where did the hundreds of thousands to have the attorneys to file this lawsuit come from?” Carollo said, adding that “these are the kind of things that we need to know now, not later.”
González, who received an endorsement from DeSantis last week, responded that he hasn’t paid his legal fees for the lawsuit yet and that the firm he works for donated to his campaign because “they believe in me.”
“Unlike you,” González said. “You’ve been shaking people down for 40 years.”
He pointed to Carollo’s political committee, which has over $1.7 million on hand, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
“And I guarantee you, people aren’t giving you money because they agree with your Judeo-Christian values,” González said.
Carollo began to respond, but the crowd started heckling him, at which point Carollo took the audience members to task.
“Wait a minute,” Carollo said, his voice booming over the mic. “This is a democracy. You let me speak. These are the people that want to support this guy? Is this how he’s gonna run City Hall?”
Carollo challenged González to “show one person that he claims that I shook down for a penny.” He also alleged that the only reason González’s firm would give him money is “because they’re going to have a puppet in their hands” to get more clients. González denied that allegation and said the company he works for doesn’t do any business in Miami or Florida.
Xavier Suarez vs. ?
Some people have viewed the race between Suarez and Carollo as an exciting rematch of the city’s contentious 1997 mayoral election, when the two were the leading candidates. Suarez initially defeated Carollo in that race, but the election was overturned months later due to ballot fraud, and Carollo was installed as mayor.
But despite their legendary rivalry, the pair barely engaged with each other at all during Tuesday’s debate. As his opponents lobbed verbal missives across the stage at one another, Suarez stayed above the fray for pretty much the entire evening — neither being attacked nor issuing attacks himself. In fact, he was relatively friendly with his opponents, even referring to González, who stood beside him, as “my buddy.”
Suarez, a former city mayor and county commissioner who is seeking to succeed his son as mayor, responded to criticisms of Miami’s so-called political dynasties.
“I’m not sure what you would call a situation where a son leaves office and then his father runs for the same seat,” Suarez said. “Inverse dynasty, maybe?”
This story was originally published October 1, 2025 at 4:33 PM.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to accurately reflect Xavier Suarez’s past elected positions.
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