Not a knock knock joke: Miami’s politicians win and lose elections on doorsteps

If you want to predict a winner in Miami politics, try looking at the candidates’ soles. Of their shoes, that is.

If the tread isn’t bare, look elsewhere.

Despite the millions that will be spent this year on mailers, consultants, TV commercials and social media buys before the local Nov. 7 elections, neighborhood canvassing is where South Florida voters typically find the beef. Even in 2017, when candidates can turn to Facebook and Twitter to insert themselves into voters’ digital subconscious, Miami’s local elections are still won and lost on living room sofas and on doorsteps.

“In Miami, selecting a politician is sort of like buying a car,” says City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Francis Suarez, who keeps the pair of Nike Air Cole Haans he wore during his first 2009 campaign on a bookshelf in his City Hall office. “They want to kick the tires.”

For voters, especially the few thousand in each of Miami’s five districts who vote regularly in the city’s off-year, low-turnout elections, that means lots of attention from the candidates who come courting votes. For the men and women seeking public office, the path to election day is a rite of passage involving oppressive heat waves, reckless drivers, and plenty of café — a ringer guaranteed to spit out a winner who knows the people and neighborhoods they’re elected to serve.

None of the 10 candidates running for the two City Commission seats on the ballot Nov. 7 is exempt from this truth. Not the unknowns, and not Miami’s political royalty. Just about everybody has a story about the weight they’ve lost, the dogs they’ve escaped, and the shoes they’ve worn out on the campaign trail.

“There were three heat advisories last month,” Ralph Rosado, a candidate running for Miami’s District 4 commission seat, said with a laugh recently about a July so hot it broke records. “They said try to avoid going outdoors.”

Rosado says he began walking door-to-door in January this year with a plan to meet every super-voter in the sprawling east-west district three times. The Miami Herald, which spent time with a half-dozen campaigns for this story, joined him one afternoon while he canvassed Twelfth Street Manors, a bedroom neighborhood just south of Magic City Casino with wide speedway streets, a sparse canopy and a plethora of homes quietly equipped with unpermitted efficiencies.

It’s in these enclaves, where people have owned homes for decades and the smells of salty dinners waft past front doors, that the candidates will do their heaviest lifting. And it’s the issues that come up that will shape their campaign platforms and, presumably, their priorities in office.

Rosado, sweating in his yellow campaign guayabera, steps into Jose and Estrella Ruiz’s living room, where lettuce is on the chopping board and family, not so much politics, is la tema del dia. A few homes down, past fences with American flags and front yards covered in painted asphalt, Sylvia Herrera tells Rosado she’s disgusted with drivers using her street as a speedway to get from Northwest Seventh Avenue to Flagler — and with the lack of response from City Hall.

“Yo llamado al alcalde,” she says, rolling her eyes.

The mayor, it seems, has not called back.

Rosado says he’ll be different. His opponents, of course, say the same.

Because Miami’s commission elections typically are won with just a few thousand votes, candidates can and do target the homes where voter data shows the ballots are most likely to be cast. They’ll spend a boat-load of money sending mailers to those addresses and running commercials in the market, but they know nothing beats a little face time. It’s science.

Manuel “Manolo” Reyes, who is polling well and lost to Commissioner Suarez by just 260 votes in 2009, has prioritized door-knocking this year, according to his campaign. And Denise Galvez Turros, who lacks the money of her rivals, spends her days riding around in her family’s white Dodge Durango hoping her personality and bluntness will win her votes.

Galvez, driving south of Flagler Street with her husband on a rainy, post-Hurricane Irma September afternoon, spots Maria Guadarrama, 76, on her porch with her son. Guadarrama tells Galvez she’s got her vote and mentions that everyone she votes for wins.

“Let me rub on you,” Galvez says holding Guadarrama’s arm and hopping up and down. “You’re good luck.”

There are political yard signs everywhere, but spend enough time talking to homeowners and you’ll realize one sign doesn’t really equal one vote. Sometimes they’re just placed on the public swale, or erected by a homeowner too polite to say “no.” All of these homes have been inundated with political mailers, too. Truth is, every single one of them will end up in the trash.

“That’s why I don’t invest too much in mailers,” District 3 candidate Alfonso “Alfie” Leon says one afternoon, pointing to an opponent’s advertisement lying on a driveway next to a plastic bin. Instead, Leon invests in toy lions — leoncitos — that he hands to voters in person to lighten the mood.

With six opponents, he’s got a lot of work to do. His opponents include Zoraida Barreiro, Joe Carollo, Alex Dominguez, Tomas N. “Tommy” Regalado, Miguel Soliman and Jose Suarez. Barreiro is the wife of County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, and Carollo a former mayor of the city.

West of Marlins Park, Regalado, the son of current Miami Mayor Tomas P. Regalado, is walking on a day when attack pieces have flooded mailboxes in the neighborhood depicting him as a diaper-wearing charlatan. At some homes, including Juan Sotolongo’s, where a framed 2012 Regalado family Christmas card is still in the living room, it’s a running joke.

Here, a neighborhood Regalado is canvassing for the second time, the family name is gold.

“Coño!” one voter says when Regalado — who refuses to wear campaign shirts — introduces himself. “Que bueno!”

On the other hand, Miami’s voters are used to all this by now. Every four years, the candidates come around, and what they say before and after winning office can be very different. It’s one thing to promise results when you’re on the campaign trail, and another thing to deliver them.

“They promise everything” during the campaign, says 74-year-old Rodelio Conesa, who lives one block off Calle Ocho and spends a lot of time at the Little Havana Activity Center, a regular stomping ground for candidates. “Later, when they’re in power, they forget everything. They have bad memories.”

Convincing voters that won’t happen is just part of the job. And regardless of campaign funds and family name, the best way to convince someone you’re different — true or not — is to do it in person.

“If you want to get to city hall,” Leon says, there’s only one way: “It’s walking, walking, walking.”

This story was originally published October 20, 2017 at 2:21 PM with the headline "Not a knock knock joke: Miami’s politicians win and lose elections on doorsteps."