The Trump-backed candidate faces a Democratic candidate with national support in the Miami mayoral race. Here’s what you should know

MIAMI (AP) — A candidate backed by President Donald Trump and a candidate backed by national Democratic figures face off Tuesday to be Miami’s next mayor, in this sunny city shaped by immigrants as both major political parties watch for a glimpse of their standing ahead of next year’s midterm elections, especially among Hispanic voters.

If elected, Eileen Higgins will become the first Democrat to lead the city of 487,000 in nearly three decades. A win for Emilio Gonzalez could help placate Republicans seeking to maintain their hold in Miami and demonstrate their strength in a predominantly Hispanic place.

The Miami mayoral runoff — one of the last election battles before the 2026 midterm elections — comes on the heels of Trump’s influence in shifting the city’s political landscape significantly to the right. This has made Higgins’ nomination a test of Democratic prospects in Florida and among Latinos elsewhere.

The local race certainly doesn’t predict what might happen at the ballot box next year. Tuesday’s election is a runoff between the two top vote-getters in the November 4 election, and is expected to see a small turnout for the midterm competition. But this did not prevent national parties and their leaders from participating, and some major issues driving national politics also emerged in the competition.

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Big-name Republicans in Florida, such as Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott, have backed Gonzalez, the former city manager, in the nonpartisan race. Well-known Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have joined the campaign to help Higgins, who served on the County Commission before winning a runoff last month.

The Democrats’ victory will increase the party’s momentum ahead of the midterm elections after the successes it achieved in the November elections and a closer-than-expected loss in a special election last week for a congressional district in Tennessee that Trump won by a large margin last year. The Miami contest is located in an area that is increasingly shifting toward Republicans and the location where Trump intends to build his presidential library.

Higgins was proudly known as La Gringa, a term Spanish speakers use to refer to white Americans, but she also speaks Spanish and represents the Cuban enclave of Little Havana as part of an area that leans conservative. Higgins focused her campaign on local issues such as the cost of housing, but she also mentioned national issues, including immigration detention under the Trump administration in a city with a large Latino and foreign population.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez campaigned on eliminating Miami’s property tax and simplifying permits for businesses. A former director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services under Republican President George W. Bush said during a debate that he supports detaining immigrants against those who have committed crimes. When asked that most of those arrested did not commit violent crimes, he said it was a “federal issue.”

Miami is the second most populous city in Florida, after Jacksonville, and is considered the center of the state’s diverse culture. It’s part of Miami-Dade County, which Trump flipped last year, handily defeating Democrat Kamala Harris after losing the county to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. He had lost here by 30 percentage points to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.