Will Trump matter in the contest to replace Rebeca Sosa on the Miami-Dade Commission?

When retirees looked at the Spanish-language handbill that Kevin Marino Cabrera’s campaign team handed out at a senior center on a recent visit, they saw two images: the Miami-Dade County Commission candidate and his most famous backer, former President Donald Trump.

“His whole platform was America First. What we’ve done is say: We’re going to put Dade first,” Cabrera, 32, said after the gathering at Miami’s Residential Plaza at Blue Lagoon, where he left behind pastelitos for the residents. “It’s about focusing on and making sure we put the residents, small businesses and seniors of Miami-Dade County first.”

The Trump-focused message for Cabrera, a lobbyist and former Trump campaign staffer, is one that his opponent in Miami-Dade’s District 6 race, Coral Gables Commissioner Jorge Fors Jr., predicts will backfire in November.

“He’s an election denier,” Fors, 39, a Republican and a lawyer, said of Cabrera, referring to his opponent’s refusal to say whether he agrees with Trump’s false claim that President Joe Biden lost the 2020 presidential election. “The Donald Trump endorsement, in my opinion, completely eliminated the possibility of Kevin getting any meaningful amount of Democratic voters.”

Cabrera came out 17 points ahead of Fors in the August elections, when four candidates were running for the District 6 seat that term-limited Rebeca Sosa is vacating in November after 21 years in office. Cabrera finished with 43% of the vote to 26% for Fors. Cabrera has a fundraising lead in the fall campaign, raising more than $1.8 million compared with $870,000 raised by Fors.

For the Nov. 8 runoff election, the two Republican candidates in the nonpartisan county contest are amplifying their original messages: Cabrera, a populist backed by Trump who is willing to take on the establishment, and Fors, a moderate in the Sosa mold who wants to make county government more responsive to residents.

READ MORE: Voters elect three Miami-Dade County commissioners. Two races head to runoff elections

The two are on opposite sides of a District 6 controversy about whether Miami-Dade County should let Coral Gables pursue annexation of the Little Gables neighborhood, which sits outside city limits and under county jurisdiction.

READ MORE: Coral Gables to woo new county commission in seeking to absorb Little Gables

Cabrera backs the annexation push, which Miami-Dade commissioners blocked in 2019 before the city could hold the required referendum for the more than 3,000 people who would become Coral Gables residents if the ballot measure passed.

“I’m for people deciding their own destiny,” Cabrera said. “That’s not my decision to make. It’s the voters.”

Fors won his Gables commission seat in 2019 in part on an anti-annexation platform, and remains wary of the push by Mayor Vince Lago to expand the city’s boundaries to include the 205-acre enclave. The county fire union backing Fors is a top opponent of the plan.

Fors said he sees annexation as increasing housing costs for Little Gables residents as they’re brought into a city with a higher municipal tax rate than Miami-Dade, while making it easier for developers to go vertical in the area once it is taken out of county jurisdiction and into Coral Gables.

“It’s a development play,” Fors said.

Both candidates agree housing costs are the top concern they’re hearing from voters as they knock on doors in District 6, a region bisected by the Dolphin Expressway, centered around Miami International Airport, and stretching from Hialeah to neighborhoods just outside of South Miami.

“In the next seven years, we’re going to face a huge issue with displaced elderly people,” Fors said. “A lot of them rent, and are on fixed incomes.”

Fors said he’d like to see Miami-Dade invest in texting services and other technology to help older residents stay connected with agencies and groups offering housing help. He also wants Miami-Dade to encourage construction of additional senior housing. “We need more assisted-living facilities,” he said.

Cabrera said he would push for targeted tax breaks for older residents. “One of the things I’ve been talking about [is] trying to find a way to freeze property taxes for people who are 65 or older,” he said, provided they’re longtime homeowners and their finances meet a needs-based criteria. “To make sure we’re helping the right people,” he said.

On new spending, Cabrera said he wants Miami-Dade to invest more in infrastructure, citing street flooding as an example of something the county needs to fix. Fors wants more policing in the suburban areas that rely on Miami-Dade for neighborhood patrols.

Endorsements received

The fall campaign began with Cabrera picking up endorsements from Republican mayors in District 6’s largest cities — Miami’s Francis Suarez, Hialeah’s Esteban “Steve” Bovo and Coral Gables’ Lago.

Fors received endorsements from Sosa and multiple council members from the large cities, and he is emphasizing backing by Miami-Dade’s powerful fire and police unions.

Cabrera’s wife, Demi Busatta Cabrera, is a Republican member of the Florida House since 2020 and going into her November reelection race with party support and a sizable fundraising advantage over Democratic opponent Adam Benna.

A registered lobbyist with Miami-Dade since 2018 for Mercury Public Affairs, Cabrera dropped his county registrations ahead of filing for office but has active registrations in Tallahassee, according to the state website.

Fors sees state politics at work in some local endorsements, with the GOP establishment backing Cabrera as a way to support his wife. Anthony Rodriguez, a sitting Republican House member who won his August election for the commission’s District 10 seat, has steered more than $200,000 from his own political committee funds to Cabrera’s election effort.

“Tallahassee is trying to infiltrate the Miami-Dade County Commission,” said Fors, who has backing from mayors from District 6’s smaller municipalities: Maria Puente Mitchell of Miami Springs and Spencer Deno of Virginia Gardens.

Cabrera accused Fors of blaming others for a lack of support in the District 6 race. That includes a defamation lawsuit Fors filed against Cabrera and political operatives in September.

The Circuit Court litigation cites Cabrera mailers using a fake image of Fors in a prison jumpsuit while listing legal infractions on Fors’ record, including traffic tickets, underage drinking as a college student and parking in a handicapped spot.

The suit also accuses Cabrera’s Dade First political committee of sending a text-message attack that falsely claimed Fors voted against regulating “shady motels” even though the Gables commissioner hadn’t seen that issue come before the board since his election.

The suit also levels an explosive charge against Cabrera without proof, saying he “is or was a member of the Proud Boys.” In an interview, Fors said he has no proof of that allegation beyond Cabrera’s well-publicized participation in a 2018 protest organized by the Miami-Dade Republican Party that also drew members of the far-right group.

Video from the event outside of a Coral Gables meeting attended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and local Democratic congressional candidates showed Cabrera joining the crowd in banging on the office door and demanding “open up.”

The rowdiness was condemned by Republican leaders at the time, including U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. Cabrera called it a legitimate political protest and said he had nothing to do with the Proud Boys group. At a July meeting with the Miami Herald Editorial Board, Cabrera was asked if he “denounced the Proud Boys.” His answer: “Yes.”

The Fors suit hasn’t advanced to a hearing, and no defendant has filed a response.

“It’s a frivolous lawsuit,” Cabrera said. “That’s what losers do.”

This story was originally published October 20, 2022 at 3:01 PM.