Matteo-Salinas defeats Pardo Pope in Miami Beach runoff election
_fitted.png "Monica Matteo-Salinas defeated Monique Pardo Pope in a runoff for Miami Beach City Commission Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025.")
Monica Matteo-Salinas defeated Monique Pardo Pope in a runoff election Tuesday to win a seat on the Miami Beach City Commission.
Preliminary results show Matteo-Salinas had 71% of the vote.
Matteo-Salinas, 46, a former aide for two city commissioners, will now sit on the dais herself in a position previously held by her former boss, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez.
“I am humbled and deeply grateful for the trust Miami Beach residents have placed in me,” Matteo-Salinas said in a statement. “I ran for this seat because I love our city — because my children, and every child in our community, deserve to grow up in a Miami Beach we can be proud of, and because our residents deserve a city government that truly works for them.”
Rosen Gonzalez, who lost a tight mayoral election to incumbent Steven Meiner last month, was term-limited as a city commissioner.
Six candidates lined up to try to replace her in the Nov. 4 election. Matteo-Salinas and Pardo Pope were the top two finishers, setting up a runoff since no candidate received more than 50% of the vote.
After serving as an aide to Rosen Gonzalez and Alex Fernandez, Matteo-Salinas most recently worked as an office associate for Miami Beach’s fleet department, a position she said she would resign from if elected.
Matteo-Salinas is also the former board chair of the nonprofit Miami Beach Community Development Corporation.
She will represent all of Miami Beach. The city’s commissioners serve in at-large positions.
While the race was officially nonpartisan, party politics weighed heavily in public messaging.
Matteo-Salinas is a Democrat and had the backing of the local and state Democratic Party. Pardo Pope is a Republican and touted support from various Republican officials and groups.
Tuesday’s results mean Democrats maintain a majority on the Miami Beach City Commission. Three commissioners who are registered Democrats — Fernandez, Laura Dominguez and Tanya Katzoff Bhatt — endorsed Matteo-Salinas in the runoff.
Meiner and commissioners Joseph Magazine and David Suarez are registered as non-party affiliated.
In a September interview with the Miami Herald Editorial Board, Matteo-Salinas said her top priorities were to promote affordability, improve transportation options and rein in development.
Pardo Pope’s campaign highlighted instability during Matteo-Salinas’ tenure at the Miami Beach Community Development Corporation. Miami-Dade County sought to take over the affordable housing organization amid allegations of financial mismanagement and poor living conditions for residents.
Matteo-Salinas told the Miami Herald that the organization’s challenges predated her time on the board and that improvements were made while she was there.
READ MORE: Who are the candidates in the Miami Beach City Commission runoff? What to know
Pardo Pope, an attorney specializing in family law, faced heat on the campaign trail for past social media posts in which she referred lovingly to her late father, convicted serial killer Manuel Pardo, and called him her “hero.”
Pardo was convicted in 1988 of killing nine people and was sentenced to death. He was executed in 2012. Pardo Pope posted several tributes to her father on social media in the years after his death.
After filmmaker Billy Corben posted a video about Pardo Pope and her father in September, Pardo Pope wrote in a statement posted to Instagram that she was “confident that voters will look past the sins of my father and understand that I too am a victim in this.”
“I did not get here easily. I went through a long period of anger and bitterness, struggling to understand how the man I loved could commit such a crime,” Pardo Pope wrote.
Pardo Pope has sparred with Corben in the weeks since. In November, Corben filed a complaint with the Florida Bar, saying Pardo Pope “lied” when she told the Miami New Times that Corben “has made a career of slinging mud, which has even resulted in losing a defamation case.”
Corben said that wasn’t true, noting that the one time he was a party to a defamation suit, his side was awarded fees under Florida’s anti-SLAPP statute.
In a social media post last week, Pardo Pope wrote that she had been subject to “political attacks and relentless harassment” during the campaign.
“These past months have been filled with misinformation, targeted hostility, and efforts to distract from the real issues that matter to our community,” Pardo Pope said.
This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 7:19 PM.
