Carollo leads the pack for Miami mayor fundraising. See how the candidates rank
While Joe Carollo formally filed paperwork to run for Miami mayor at the 11th hour just a few weeks ago, the last-minute campaign launch didn’t stop the longtime city commissioner from raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions this summer.
Newly released campaign finance reports show that Carollo is the leading fundraiser among the baker’s dozen of candidates who qualified to run for mayor in the city’s Nov. 4 election.
For the third quarter of 2025, Carollo, a former mayor, reported raising over $700,000 to his campaign account and his political committee, Miami First.
Combined with the more than $1.8 million that Miami First already had on hand before the summer, that leaves over $2.5 million in Carollo’s war chest as the city careens toward Election Day. His spending, on the other hand, was conservative in recent months, with just under $11,000 in expenditures reported in the third quarter. The reporting period for political committees captured spending from July 1 to Sept. 30, with candidate campaign accounts showing spending through Oct. 3.
“This is how I ran the city as a mayor — responsibly,” Carollo told the Miami Herald on Monday. He added that he’s confident he’ll make it to a runoff and that he doesn’t need to spend “a huge amount of money” to get there.
“I don’t have handlers,” Carollo said. “I don’t pay people to fundraise for me. ... I’m my own campaign manager. I’ve always been that.”
Asked who he considers to be his biggest competition, Carollo responded: “Everyone is a competitor. My biggest competition is gonna be whoever ends up in a runoff against me.”
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Two of Carollo’s main opponents include Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins and former City Manager Emilio González.
Higgins ranked second among the mayoral candidates for the same three-month period. She reported nearly $480,000 in contributions, although $175,000 of that was money transferred from one of Higgins’ political committees, Rebranding Politics, to another, Ethical Leadership for Miami.
Higgins said Monday that she was “deeply grateful to everyone who’s joined our campaign to end the chaos at City Hall and deliver real results for Miami.” Between her campaign account and her two political committees, Higgins had about $380,000 remaining as of Oct. 3.
In third was former City Manager Emilio González, who raised $311,800 in the third quarter. González said in a statement that “another strong fundraising quarter ... proves our message is connecting with the people of Miami.”
While González has raised about $1 million since he started formally campaigning in the spring, the retired U.S. Army colonel has spent a large chunk of that money. By early October, he had about $160,000 left between his campaign account and his PAC, Mission Miami.
Former Mayor Xavier Suarez reported $118,850 raised over the summer, and former City Commissioner Ken Russell reported just under $70,000. Another former commissioner, Alex Díaz de la Portilla, reported $101,000 in contributions, although that number includes two $50,000 loans to himself.
Candidate Michael A. Hepburn wasn’t too far behind, with about $25,000 raised during the third quarter, although the vast majority of that figure was made up of in-kind contributions — including social media content and campaign materials — from Hepburn to himself.
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