Commisioner Joe Carollo files initial paperwork to run for Miami mayor

Updated: He did it! Ending months of speculation, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo filed paperwork indicating that he is going to run for mayor in the November race in 45 days, after all. He didn’t qualify — yet. But he has until 6 p.m. Saturday to do so.
Carollo said on his morning radio show Friday said he had not actually made up his mind about “taking the final step.” But if he does, “I know I’m stepping into the fire because what’s coming is inhuman.” He said he was going to pray, as if God would listen to him, and talk it over with his wife Marjory, as if he hasn’t talked it over ad nauseam with her already.
But he’s running. Because who else is going to pay his legal bills?
The termed out veteran Miami pol has been hinting at his run, every single morning on his radio show, Miami Al Dia, which he used Friday morning to say how he was going to fix everything “when I am mayor of Miami,” how he fixed everything once before and “acted with honesty and integrity.
Read related: How much longer will Miami taxpayers pay for Crazy Joe Carollo’s lawyers?
“And that is something none of these people can erase,” Carollo said, calling some of the other mayoral candidates “idiots of the extreme left who vomit hate and lies and defamation for ideology or for the little dollars they get.”
He said that the last time he was mayor, the city was “in the worst financial crisis in the history of Miami… and Joe Corollo was the mayor who looked for the solutions and led this city out of it.”
Carollo joins a clusterbunch of candidates in the race. Former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez — who sued the city to make sure the election happened after commissioners cancelled it in May — is a favorite target of his show. As is “leftist” Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins and former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell. He calls former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, a onetime ally before the former senator was arrested on public corruption charges and suspended in 2023, “King Mamey,” because of the fruit that ADLP hands out to voters in his campaign goody bag.
Gonzalez, Higgins and Russell had all qualified by Friday, when Carollo filed his bank account papers. Diaz de la Portilla had not. It’s still just a threat from him. Same goes for Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, the father of the current Miami mayor who himself was elected the first Cuban-born mayor of Miami. The deadline is  6 p.m. Saturday. People close to him told Political Cortadito that his heart is not in it and that he won’t follow through if he does not see a path forward. He also doesn’t want to keep pissing off his family. Oops. It looks like they were wrong. X qualified Friday.
Software giant Fred Voccola is also a no-show so far, despite spending a small fortune on text messages, a website and digital ads. And the most recent name to pop up, Kenneth James DeSantis — a relative of the governor’s — is “still on the fence.”
Read related: Fred “Who?” Voccola could be a Francis Suarez reboot for Miami mayor’s race
Qualifying so far: Community Council Member Christian Cevallos, Laura Anderson, who identifies with the socialist workers party — but has zero union endorsements — Alyssa Crocker, Michael Hepburn and June Savage.
Carollo has been hinting at running for months. Earlier this week, he said he received calls from Channel 10 and The Miami Herald asking him if he was going to do it.
“And The Miami Herald told me that my entry into the race would change everything,” he said, clearly flattered, even though he calls the paper the Miami Granma, which is the name of the communist party’s newspaper in Cuba. “Can you believe that? That Joe Carollo could change the election just by running?”
He believes it.
A recent poll has Higgins getting into the runoff with Gonzalez, who has gained a lot of free media exposure for his lawsuit against the city of Miami after commissioners in May voted to change the election from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years, which effectively cancelled this year’s races for mayor and commissioners in districts 3 and 5. He won in court and is considered sort of a hero for saving the election, a title he is riding all the way to the ballot box. A recent video from his campaign calls the other candidates “cheerleaders” (more on that later).
Carollo is an easy target because of the lawsuits against him — including the First Amendment demand from the Little Havana business owners that got a jury award of $63.5 million — and the costs the city has incurred because of them. There was a failed recall attempt against him in 2020 that was thwarted on a technicality after the city claimed it was not filed before the deadline.
But he also hits hard. His certain entry into the race means it’s going to get uglier than it has already. All we need now is ADLP to jump into the clown car and we have got ourselves one fun 45 days in front of us.
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The post Commisioner Joe Carollo files initial paperwork to run for Miami mayor appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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