Eileen Higgins and Emilio González advance to runoff in Miami mayor’s race

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins and former Miami City Manager Emilio González are headed to a runoff in the Miami mayor’s race after neither candidate managed to secure more than 50% of the vote Tuesday night.

With all precincts reporting, Higgins had captured nearly 36% of the vote, with González coming in second at more than 19%. There were 13 candidates in total.

Higgins, a Democrat, and González, a Republican, will face off in a Dec. 9 runoff for the nonpartisan mayoral seat.

At an election night party at a hotel blocks from her downtown condominium, Higgins emerged shortly after 7:30 p.m. to greet cheering supporters. She quickly found the county’s top Democrat — Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava — and they joined their raised hands in a victory pose.

“We’re done with dysfunction,” Higgins told the crowd. “We’re done with chaos. ”

She gave similar remarks in Spanish as local television cameras rolled on the penthouse bar of the Yotel hotel.

The New Mexico native is running to be the first non-Hispanic Miami mayor in recent history and is facing a Cuban American she once worked with when González was the county’s aviation director.

A smiling González posed for selfies as the crowd began to swell at Hoy Como Ayer in Little Havana as the results trickled in .

“I’m very happy,” González told the Herald. “I worked very hard for this. My team worked very hard for this. But more than anything else, the residents of the city of Miami have spoken. They want to see something different, they want to see something new, they want a new direction for the city. And I’m honored that I’ve been selected by them to take this a step further, and on December the 9th, let’s do this again.”

Higgins got nearly double the votes as González, but he said he wasn’t concerned heading into a runoff.

“Remember, Higgins was only running against Ken [Russell],” a fellow Democrat, González said. “I had to run against everybody else. That’s the difference.”

What reason will voters have to choose him over her in the runoff? “The fact that I’m not a career politician,” González said. “That I’ve been in the city before, and I know what I’m doing and that I’m going to take the city further. She is easily a career politician.”

In an interview, Higgins made clear she would try to paint González as the insider in the two-person race.

“The era of chaos happened when he was city manager,” she told the Herald. “We already know what Emilio would do as mayor. We know what he did as manager.”

The election fell on Higgins’ final day as a county commissioner — the office she won in her first campaign seven years ago. In 2018, the unknown civic activist won the County Commission race in an upset by tapping into Democratic voters’ anger during Trump’s first term.

The 61-year-old headed into this Election Day the favorite for first place thanks to a similar political dynamic during Trump’s second term, but this time with the fundraising muscle and name recognition that comes with being a two-term county commissioner representing parts of the city.

Russell, who came in third, with about 18% of the vote, conceded around 8:30 p.m.

Although he didn’t make the runoff, there were no somber faces in the Sandbar Sports Grill where he and more than two dozen of his supporters gathered hoping for a better outcome. When it came time for Russell to address his loyal voters, he only spoke of hope and successful times ahead. “All three of the top candidates are here for reform in one way or another,” he said, powering through his speech. “Nobody here is trying to turn the clock backward, and that’s a good thing that Miami should be proud of.”

Russell made it a point to celebrate that current and former Miami Commissioners Joe Carollo and Alex Díaz de la Portilla, respectively, were near the bottom of the pack and far from eligible for the runoff.

“People want change in the city of Miami, and they are not putting up with yesterday,” he said. “They are ready for tomorrow.”

He prepared to leave Sandbar as he came in, hugging and shaking the hands of every supporter with a smile and a promise that change is coming.

“We left nothing on the table. … We just didn’t have the resources to expand the vote as much as we needed.”

This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 9:14 PM.

Tess Riski

Miami Herald

Tess Riski covers Miami City Hall. She joined the Miami Herald in 2022 and has covered local politics throughout Miami-Dade County. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School’s Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.