How Biden helped Democrats win the Miami-Dade mayoral race, and reset county politics
Joe Biden’s performance in Miami-Dade on Tuesday night left Democrats feeling ill. Daniella Levine Cava’s lopsided win in the county mayoral race left Democrats cheering.
Despite the opposite reactions, both candidates took roughly the same share of votes in Miami-Dade — a measure of the new overlap in presidential politics and county elections.
Biden, a former vice president from Delaware who rarely visited Miami, won 53% of the county’s vote to Donald Trump’s 46%. Levine Cava, a two-term commissioner from Palmetto Bay who speaks Spanish, won 54% of the county’s vote to fellow commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo Jr.’s 46%.
he twin margins help illustrate why political consultants and pollsters think the Levine Cava win marks a new era in county politics for Miami-Dade, where there are 50% more registered Democrats than Republicans.
Democrats see gains in ditching the formal “non-partisan” status of local races in favor of aligning with a presidential candidate sure to post healthy margins in Miami-Dade even if the votes fall short of turning Florida blue in the Electoral College.
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