Francis Suarez

The oldest of four siblings, Suarez is the son of Rita and Xavier Suarez, two-time Miami mayor. His aunt, Lala, is the mother of U.S. Congressman Alex Mooney from West Virginia. Suarez attended Immaculata-LaSalle High School. He graduated in 1996 and went on to graduate in the top 10% of his class from Florida International University (FIU) with a bachelor's degree in finance. Following college, Suarez chose to attend the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law, receiving his J.D. degree cum laude in 2004. After law school, Suarez became an attorney with the law firm Greenspoon Marder, specializing in corporate and real estate transactions. Before serving in the city government, Suarez first served on his local homeowner association. Suarez cited a home burglary that he had suffered as his motivation for getting involved. == Miami city commissioner (2009–2017) ==

Suarez was first elected to the Miami City Commission's District 4 seat in 2009. in a special election to replace Tomás Regalado who had resigned in order to become mayor. The initial round of the election was held was on November 3, 2009. Suarez advanced to a runoff election against Manolo Reyes after receiving 44.74 percent of the vote in the initial round, with Reyes receiving 40.50 percent, Denis Rod receiving 5.15 percent and Oscar Rodriguez-Fonts receiving 9.61 percent. District 4 represented portions of the city's westernmost reaches. In January 2013 the Miami Herald wrote that in his first three years on the City Commission "Suarez has had mixed results passing policy." Suarez introduced a controversial motion that was passed by the City Commission, resulting in a decrease to city employees salaries. He also was an advocate for changes that were made to the zoning code of the city aimed at easing the ability to construct affordable housing. However, Suarez was unsuccessful in a push to move the city from using a weak mayor form of government to adopting a strong mayor form of government. Suarez ultimately announced a campaign to unseat Regaldo in the 2013 mayoral election. 2013 mayoral campaign Suarez was widely anticipated to challenge incumbent Miami mayor Tomás Regaldo in the November 2013 mayoral election. In anticipation of his campaign, Suarez fundraised significantly at the end of 2012, with his "political communications organization" raising $460,000. This eclipsed the $160,000 that Regaldo had raised for his reelection by the end of 2012. Contributors to Suarez included Jackson Health System CEO and former Miami city manager Carlos A. Migoya as well as former Miami mayor Manny Diaz. For his campaign, Suarez hired experienced local political consultants, a media firm based in Washington, D.C., as well as a Virginia-based pollster. However, the primary actors in Suarez's campaign operation were relatives of his, including his cousin Steve Suarez, who served as his campaign manager. Suarez's candidacy was rocked by controversies regarding the conduct of staffers. Two staffers became the subject of criminal investigations for forging signatures of acquaintances on absentee ballot request forms. Another staffer submitted twenty online absentee ballot requests in violation of Florida law, which dictated that online requests could only be made by the voter or a member of their immediate family. Suarez's father was accused of possibly attempting to influence a witness in the investigations when he reached out by email one of the voters for whom a ballot request had been illegally submitted. These scandals led to both this staffer and the campaign manager (Steve Suarez) each pleading guilty to misdemeanors resulting in probation. In ending his candidacy, Suarez cited several factors including "mistakes" made by his campaign team. ==Mayor of Miami (2017-2025)==

Suarez was elected mayor of Miami in the 2017 election. The Miami Herald noted that his candidacy benefited from a strong effort to motivate voters to cast absentee ballots for him. Suarez is Miami's first local-born mayor. He is also the first mayor to not be born in Cuba since 1996, when mayor Stephen P. Clark died in office. Suarez was re-elected in the 2021 Miami mayoral election, receiving over 78% of the vote in the first ballot. Miami has a weak mayor system under which the mayor holds little authority, The city's mayoralty is a part-time position and does not have power over the city's administration. Its limited powers include a veto over city commission legislation and the ability to declare emergencies. While he has limited statutory power, Douglas Hanks of the Miami Herald noted in June 2023 that Suarez has managed to position himself as, "the most high-profile figure" in Miami's city government. and in June 2021, he was elected as the first vice president of the organization. From June 2022 to June 2023, he served as the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Suarez was included in Fortune magazine's 2021 list of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders". As mayor, Suarez was frequently absent from City Commission meetings. He defended this decision, claiming that being hands-off of City Commission proceedings allowed him to better deal with the personalities on the commission, which he characterized as being a chaotic body whose members had pronounced personalities and heavy egos. The adoption of the ballot measure, which would have led to the mayor having power over city administration (including power over staffing offices that administer permitting and zoning departments), had been supported by many of the city's largest real estate developers, real estate brokers, and land use lawyers. More the $1.2 million was raised from such sources for Suarez's political action committee to promote a "yes" vote. Development As mayor, Suarez has overseen a $400 million municipal bond initiative, sometimes called the Miami Forever Bond, to combat rising sea levels and support affordable housing. The accelerated population growth Miami has experienced since 2020 (which has included an influx of millionaires and billionaires) has contributed to a severe shortage of the city's supply of affordable housing, In the final year of his mayoralty, Suarez voiced his support for plans to construct of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library in Downtown Miami. Suarez proposed eStart in 2019, and it was launched in January 2021. Climate change Suarez acknowledged that rising sea levels resulting from climate change pose a challenge for Miami. In November 2019 the Miami City Commission unanimously adopted a resolution submitted by Suarez amounting to a climate emergency declaration for Miami. The resolution was symbolic, having no attached actions or plans. Suarez pledged to spend funds raised from the Miami Forever Bond to address climate matters and to pursue additional state and federal funding. Business Role in marketing city Supporters and critics alike often described Suarez (whose office as mayor had limited statutory roles and limited statutory authority) as using the pulpit of his title as Miami's mayor to act as the city's de facto "chief marketing officer". Suarez has also promoted the city of Miami to investors as being a profitable location for tech and finance firms to locate their offices. Suarez attracted national headlines by replying on Twitter to posts in which California-based technology company executives complained about their dissatisfaction with California's state government. Suarez replied to their posts with "how can I help?", which he turned into a personal catchphrase. Growth of city The city of Miami experienced an increase in wealth and business after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Miami and the state of Florida each saw large population growth after the start of pandemic, with the state gaining 229,090 residents between July 2020 and July 2021 (the most residents gained by any U.S. state in that time period), and Miami experiencing 12% population growth in 2022 and 14% population growth in 2023. The new population (which included new billionaire resident of Florida such as Carl Icahn, Jeff Bezos, Kenneth C. Griffin, Stephen Schwarzman, David Blumberg, and David O. Sacks) greatly increased local and state tax revenue, especially corporate tax revenue. With his eyes on higher office, Suarez has sought to lay public claim to credit for this period of economic growth. His case for his 2024 presidential candidacy was premised on his claim that his mayoral leadership had contributed to the city's economic growth. and intended for Miami to be the next Silicon Valley. Suarez sought to draw cryptocurrency capital to the city, believing that a strong embrace of cryptocurrency would modernize the city's economy and better position it for e-business (digital business). He erected a “crypto bull” statue in Downtown Miami, an allusion to the fame Charging Bull statue in New York City (an icon of Wall Street and the Manhattan Financial District). He also made an effort to persuade the organizers of cryptocurrency conferences to host their events in Miami. He also supported plans FTX had before its collapse made to move its headquarters to Miami. Suarez would later comment that his decision to support involvement with FTX had "not matured well," but noted that many prominent investors had been invested in FTX. Less than a year after the launch of MiamiCoin, the token was delisted from its last exchange, OKCoin, after losing over 90% of its value. Suarez lost $2,500 personally on MiamiCoin. Suarez continued to tout the money earned from MiamiCoin, and maintained his support for cryptocurrency. As a gesture of his support for cryptocurrency, in November 2021 he announced that he planned to receive his next mayoral salary payment in the form of bitcoin (a cryptocurrency), becoming the first U.S. politician to take their salary in cryptocurrency. As of early 2024, maintained this personal bitcoin holding (having opted against selling or exchanging it). Miami was unsuccessful in its bid for the convention, with Milwaukee being selected instead. Transportation In 2021, after seeing the Las Vegas Loop constructed by Elon Musk's The Boring Company, Suarez raised the possibility of using tunneling to relieve congestion problems in Miami, proposing, "something that could potentially connect Brickell to downtown to the Grand Central station to Miami World Center to the Omni area to Edgewater, potentially to Wynwood." The accelerated population growth that the city experienced after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to worsening traffic congestion in the city (as of 2024, the data company Inrix ranked Miami as ranked the ninth-worst city in the world in terms of traffic). Suarez has been regularly absent from meetings of the regional transit boards, and has contributed little of note in his position on the board. In July 2024, while attending a meeting where the board was scheduled to hold a vote on adopting a new five-year improvement plan, Suarez publicly castigated the board as having been inadequate at improving transit. Suarez criticized the $680 million financing proposed for specific projects at Miami International Airport (including an expansion of Concourse D) as too little money and not doing enough to improve the airport. However, he appeared unaware that there had been a separate $6.8 billion capital plan for the airport (to be implemented over five to 15 years), which included the $754 million South Terminal project that had broken ground earlier that year. Though no cases had yet to reported in Miami, two cases were confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in other areas of the state of Florida. On March 6, 2020, Suarez and the Miami municipal government responded to the outbreak, which by then had resulted in even more confirmed coronavirus cases in the state of Florida, by cancelling the local Calle Ocho Festival as well. Suarez and two other city officials confirmed this during a press conference. He was the second person confirmed to be infected in Miami-Dade County. He began posting daily video diaries to Instagram, showing the progression of his COVID-19 infection. In April 2020, Suarez wrote to President Trump urging the president to take action to stop flights from COVID-19 "hot spots" from entering Miami International Airport. Carlos A. Giménez, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, came into conflict with Suarez over this. As Gimenez's position held oversight of the airport, he urged Trump to ignore Suarez's letter since the airport was not Suarez's purview. In July 2020, Suarez dedicated 39 police officers to the task of enforcing a Miami-wide mask-wearing ordinance. Support for moving city elections to even-years; effort to postpone 2025 election and extend term On June 26, to pass a controversial measure sponsored by Commissioner Damian Pardo to move all future city elections to even years and to postpone the scheduled 2025 elections to 2026. This would have meant that the 2025 Miami mayoral election would be postponed to 2026 and that Suarez's term would be extended by one year. Within hours of the resolution's passage, Suarez signed it into law. The Miami Herald reported that Suarez had privately lobbied in support of the measure prior to its adoption. The city's decision to attempt to move its elections without the consent of voters attracted controversy, including criticisms from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. On June 30, mayoral candidate Emilio T. Gonzalez filed a lawsuit against the city's postponing of its elections. The following month, Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Valerie R. Manno Schurr ruled that the city lacked the authority to move its elections without voter approval. Republican Party politics; relationship with Trump administrations During the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election, Suarez voted against Republican nominee and eventual winner Ron DeSantis and instead voted for his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum. He voted for DeSantis in the 2022 gubernatorial election. Suarez did not vote for Republican Donald Trump in either the 2016 or 2020 United States presidential elections; he wrote in Marco Rubio and Mike Pence instead. However, Suarez endorsed Trump for the 2024 election. As mayor, Suarez was a significant figure in Florida politics. He also sought to build himself a higher national profile. with a key to the city in November 2025 During the second Trump administration, Suarez gave strong praise to Trump. In September 2025, Suarez joined Trump in the Oval Office for the announcement of Trump's plans to host the 2026 G20 Summit at the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort. with keys the city also being presented by Suarez at the same event to soccer star Lionel Messi and Argentinian president Javier Milei. Private sector activities while mayor As mayor, Suarez took several new private sector jobs, resulting in his personal wealth growing substantially as mayor. When Suarez entered office as mayor, he was in personal debt. However, by the end of his mayoralty, he had risen out of his debts and raised his personal net worth to $5.3 million. His mayoralty is a part-time job due to its limited duties and powers. Accusations of conflicts of interest and allegations of impropriety Suarez' private-sector work during his mayoralty has created allegations of conflict of interests and allegations of impropriety. Suarez, who works as a private real estate attorney, has not disclosed his clients. Ethics investigations On September 28, 2023, an investigation was opened by the Florida Ethics Commission after reports surfaced that Suarez did not disclose travel "gifts" worth well over $100. The "gifts" include all expenses paid flights and VIP seating for the 2022 Miami Grand Prix and the 2022 World Cup. Suarez claims to have repaid all the expenses of these "gifts" with the latter purportedly coming from David Beckham, who Suarez was seen with in his luxury box at the World Cup, and who is a registered lobbyist for Miami Freedom Park, a new MLS stadium development to be built on city-owned land. The ethics probe was initiated after a complaint was filed by local Democratic activist Thomas Kennedy, who alleged that Suarez violated state ethics statute. The state ethics commission opened another investigation into Suarez, after Kennedy filed a separate complain in November 2023 alleging that Suarez's spending of municipal funds on personal security for his campaign had violated state ethics statutes. The commission dismissed the complaint in January 2024. Federal probe In a disclosure of financial statements to investors, a real estate development company named Location Ventures revealed that they had paid Suarez at least $170,000 to push a development project in Coconut Grove. Records showed that Suarez, Location Ventures CEO Rishi Kapoor, and City Manager Art Noriega met to discuss a zoning hurdle for the development. Suarez has faced allegations of potential impropriety in relation to this $10,000 per month in compensation for consulting services, received from a property developer who does business in the city. Suarez has publicly denied that this work presented any conflict of interest. == 2024 presidential campaign ==

In April 2021, reports that Suarez could serve as a running-mate to potential 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley emerged. A report by The Hill in September 2021 indicated that Suarez was interested in running for president in his own right. Suarez spoke on Fox News Sunday on June 11, 2023, touting visits to early primary states, saying "when I take the message to people, they want to hear more." He urged people to tune into a speech he is due to give at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on June 15, calling it a "big speech" about the "future of our country," the clearest indication yet of a presidential campaign announcement. Suarez filed to run for president with the Federal Election Commission on June 14 event in Palm Springs, Florida on the campaign trail on July 16, 2023While appearing on Hugh Hewitt's podcast on June 27, 2023, Hewitt asked Suarez about the ongoing persecution of the Uyghurs in China, to which Suarez asked "What's a Uyghur?" Suarez then assured Hewitt that he would research the ethnic group. After the podcast concluded and news of the gaffe broke, Suarez told the media that he was confused by Hewitt's pronunciation of the term 'Uyghur' and is very familiar with the crisis. The gaffe was compared to 2016 presidential candidate Gary Johnson's infamous "What is Aleppo" comment amid the Syrian civil war. Running for president, he staked out positions on abortion and climate change that were to the left of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, another contender for the nomination. On August 4, Suarez announced that his campaign would accept donations in Bitcoin, as part of his pro-cryptocurrency platform. On August 8, Suarez announced that he had met the donor requirements to attend the first Republican primary debate in Milwaukee. However, the RNC had to verify this claim before he could be officially added to the roster. He stated in an interview with The Hill that if he did not qualify for the first debate, he may leave the race. Besides having 40,000 unique donors from 20 different states, the other requirement to attend a debate was to be consistently present in polls, which he was not. A super PAC backing Suarez, the SOS America PAC, complained that Suarez was being excluded from polls saying that the zero and one percent that he was polling at was not reflective of his true popularity. Suarez himself argued that the polling requirement was unfair for "relatively unknown" figures such as himself who are competing against candidates who have been national figures for years. In addition to saying he would drop out if he did not meet the debate requirements, Suarez also called upon all other candidates to drop out if they failed to qualify for the debate at an event in Iowa. Suarez argues that "if you can't meet the minimum thresholds, you shouldn't be trying to take the time involved away from being productive.” Suarez did not meet the minimum thresholds and did not qualify for the first Republican debate on August 23. End of presidential candidacy Following his failure to meet the guidelines to attend the first debate, and his call that all candidates that cannot reach these guidelines drop out, Suarez was called upon to follow his own suggestion and drop out of the race by the Miami Herald, Business Insider, Fox News, and Congressman Carlos A. Giménez. Suarez would stay true to his promise and suspended his campaign on August 29, 2023, becoming the first in the 2024 race to drop out. During his campaign Suarez promised $20 gift cards to people who gave a $1 donation to his campaign. However, he has yet to fulfill these promises, and many of his supporters are still waiting for their gift cards. Suarez and his campaign have refused to comment on the issue. On March 1, 2024, Suarez endorsed Trump's campaign. Suarez expressed his interest in being Trump's running mate after himself withdrawing from the race for the Republican nomination. Observing that Trump was only constitutionally eligible to be elected to a single additional term beyond the one he had previously served, Suarez observed that it would be possible that Trump's running mate could be a front-runner for the 2028 election regardless of the election outcome. Due to this, he opined that, "anyone who doesn't tell you that they would be interested [in being Trump's running mate] is probably being disingenuous." ==Post mayoralty==

In February 2026, Nexar announced that Suarez had been appointed to its board of trustees. Political future Suarez expressed interest in running for governor in 2026, in which current term-limits will prevent Ron DeSantis (the incumbent Republican governor) from seeking another term. == Political positions ==

While Suarez identifies himself as a conservative Republican, he is commonly described as being a moderate or liberal Republican. According to a 2023 analysis published by FiveThirtyEight, Suarez's "policies remain conservative (lowering taxes and keeping them low has been a focus of his administration, for example), but he takes a slightly more moderate stance on issues like climate change and immigration." He has said climate change is real and he declared a climate emergency in Miami. However, Suarez has also criticized climate activists for being alarmist about the impacts that they expect climate change will have on Miami. Suarez has supported LGBT pride events. He supported the passage of the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act (the so-called "Don't Say Gay" law) as originally signed, which prohibited some classroom instruction on LGBT issues from kindergarten through third grade. However, he opposed its later expansion to all grades. In 2020, Suarez approved of Miami offering certification for businesses by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce making Miami the largest city in Florida to do so. He also signed an LGBTQ Ordinance recognizing the contributions of LGBTQ people to the City of Miami. He announced that he supports a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. However, he also supported exceptions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and called abortion a "very nuanced" issue. Suarez would not say whether he supported a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, saying instead, "the country is not there yet." During his presidential campaign, Suarez, a first generation Cuban American, criticized the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. Suarez noted that without birthright citizenship he would have lacked American citizenship. He also argued that refugees from Venezuela should be granted temporary protected status in the US. ==Personal life==

, Suarez and his wife, Gloria, reside in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami. The Suarez's have two kids, a son and a daughter. ==See also==