Democrats attack Carlos Gimenez as ‘el corruptito’ ahead of U.S. House campaign
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez isn’t yet an official candidate in the Republican primary for a South Florida swing congressional seat, but he’s already being attacked — by Democrats.
With Gimenez telling people he’ll roll out his campaign Wednesday, the Florida Democratic Party released a biting ad Friday that criticizes some of Gimenez’s actions during his decade as the strong mayor of Miami-Dade County and refers to Gimenez as “el corruptito.”
“Once upon a time in Miami, a man of power, a man of fame, a politician, abused his power to make himself and his family rich, and that man’s name is Corrupt Carlos Giménez,” says the unnamed narrator.
The ad — developed in the weeks after Gimenez first signaled his interest in a possible campaign for Florida’s 26th congressional district — highlights Gimenez’s 67 percent pay raise in 2019 after taking a pay cut when he was first elected during a recession. And it criticizes his support for the living conditions of hundreds of migrant children housed at a temporary detention center in Homestead following a visit in July.
The Florida Democratic Party ad also attacks lobbying by the mayor’s sons, including one instance in which Gimenez ultimately recused himself from participating in the county’s response to Donald Trump’s efforts to take private control of a county-owned golf course in Key Biscayne in 2014, about a year before announcing a run for president.
Gimenez responds
Gimenez, 65, has not yet publicly committed to a run for Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s seat but privately he is telling supporters he’ll announce his campaign Wednesday. On Friday, he dismissed the campaign video as “politics as usual.”
“I’ve held high administrative, legislative and executive positions in this county for close to 30 years and my record speaks for itself. The people of this community know me and I’ve always enjoyed their strong support,” he wrote in a text message to the Miami Herald. “When you can’t win the debate, you resort to personal attacks.”
Gimenez’s spokeswoman, Myriam Marquez, accused the state Democratic party of gross exaggeration and misinformation, and said it was “outrageous” that the ad incorporated video of Gimenez dancing at the charity Mayor’s Ball for the United Way to portray him as corrupt.
“Mayor Gimenez has never been a ‘man of power,’ never a ‘man of fame.’ He was a firefighter and later a city manager and county commissioner earning $6,000 salary,” she wrote in an email.
The county argued that the ad also inaccurately characterized a $400 million cut in recession-era spending during Gimenez’s first year in office as cuts to jobs, ignored that he “delivered the biggest tax cut in county history at a time when residents were desperate for relief,” and misstated his position on Trump’s short-lived family separation border policy and the conditions at the Homestead facility, where there were no “cages.”
A threat
That Democrats would take the time to produce an 86-second digital ad about an undeclared candidate shows that the party takes Gimenez seriously as a candidate and views him as a threat to Mucarsel-Powell, a freshman candidate who flipped the seat from Republican to Democratic in 2018.
The moderate, term-limited mayor is a proven fundraiser, and has broad name-recognition and popularity throughout Miami-Dade County. He was heavily recruited by House Minority Leader U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy to run for the seat even though two other Republicans — former county firefighter union president Omar Blanco and Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine co-owner Irina Vilariño — are already in the race.
But the ad also shows that Gimenez could face a tough primary, in which his lengthy record is likely to be attacked by both state and federal Democrats as well as his Republican opponents. The county commissioners representing the South Miami-Dade neighborhoods included in Florida’s 26th district are both Democrats, one of whom has endorsed Mucarsel-Powell. And both Blanco and Vilariño have already snared numerous endorsements, including several county commissioners.
The primary
Also a likely problem in a Republican primary: Gimenez’s 2016 declaration during a televised CBS4 debate that he would vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, plus his accompanying call for Donald Trump to drop out of the race.
Vilariño, one of the Republican candidates he’s expected to face, issued a statement Friday criticizing him for taking those positions.
“I welcome Carlos to the race and look forward to debating him as it will be interesting to see how a guy who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and contemplated leaving the Republican Party in 2014 will make the case that he should be our party’s nominee,” she said.
Republican Mario Diaz-Balart, a veteran Miami-Dade congressman, said Gimenez is a “formidable” candidate, but noted that he’s never run a partisan campaign before. He said the mayor should expect a bruising fight all the way to November — if he gets through his primary.
“Running for a partisan congressional seat is a lot different than running for anything else, whether it’s non-partisan local seats or even state legislative seats. One’s got to be prepared to have to speak about everything — your record and everything you’ve done since elementary school,” Diaz-Balart said, noting that Gimenez has “negatives.”
“When you’re running for a federal position,” he said, “all those negatives are going to come to light. He’s formidable, but I don’t think anyone should assume who’s going to win that primary.”
McClatchy DC reporters Alex Daugherty and Emma Dumain, and Miami Herald reporter Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 2:28 PM.
