There’s a Miami mayoral debate Thursday night, but the biggest news isn’t who’s talking. It’s who’s not going.
The Biscayne Neighborhoods Association, which is hosting the debate along with Griffin Catalyst, the philanthropic arm of billionaire Ken Griffin, decided to only invite the candidates who polled above 10% in a survey Griffin’s group commissioned.
Their list: Former City Manager Emilio González, Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, former City Commissioner Ken Russell and former Miami-Dade Commissioner Mayor Sir Xavier L. Suarez, who was the first Cuban-born mayor of Miami in 1995. These are the candidates out of the 13 in total who will get the spotlight — and airtime, because the debate streams live on NBC 6 and miamiherald.com.
Read related: One-liners and other memorable moments from Miami mayoral debate
Two of the loudest figures in Miami Politics are apparently not going: Commissioner Joe Carollo reportedly made the threshold and was invited, but had not confirmed as of late Wednesday. And former City Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla — running a redemption tour after political corruption charges were dropped last year — was left on the outside, looking in. He apparently did not even get 10% in the Griffin poll.
You know that’s going to sting.
The four who were invited also polled the highest — along with Carollo and ADLP — for the Downtown Neighbors Alliance debate last month, which became a political food fight of insults and zingers.
Thursday’s debate will be moderated by Miami Herald politics editor David Smiley and NBC 6 anchor Jackie Nespral at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. It starts at 7 p.m., runs about 90 minutes, and while the audience is invite-only — and Ladra has asked to see the guest list — the rest of us can watch live on NBC 6 or stream it on miamiherald.com.
Who’s in — and what they bring
For Suarez, this is a homecoming of sorts. The elder statesman — or elder showman, depending who you ask — gets a primetime platform to remind voters that he was mayor before most of these other candidates were even in politics. He’s been trying to position himself as the grown-up alternative to the circus Miami has become under “El Loco” and “ADLP,” who, ironically, won’t be there to defend themselves. He will appeal to the nostalgic voters.
For Russell, who left a commission seat in 2022 to run for Congress, it’s a new venue in which to pitch himself as the rational, reform-minded alternative. He’s been hammering a message about transparency and ethics — two words that haven’t exactly been trending in Miami City Hall.
Read related: Poll has Eileen Higgins in Miami mayoral runoff with Emilio Gonzalez
For Higgins, the only woman on stage who is trying to become the first female mayor of Miami, it’s an opportunity to stand out. She’s already known countywide as a commissioner who digs into budgets and bureaucracy, and she’ll likely highlight her work on housing and transit. She might even call out the city’s dysfunctional permitting process, again.
For Gonzalez, a onetime President Bush appointee to U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services, retired Army colonel and Trump fan, it’s a last chance to appeal to the other side of the aisle. A consistent conservative voice pitching tax relief and “back to basics” government, he touts the endorsements of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott and, most recently, U.S. Senator from Texas Ted Cruz. But all that could turn off Democrat and Independent voters, which he needs to win.
Who’s out — and why it matters
Carollo wouldn’t dare show up to a debate hosted by The Herald, which he calls the Miami Gramma, referring to the Communist Party’s newspaper in Cuba. Ladra doubts that Diaz de la Portilla would have gone, if he had even invited. He told Political Cortadito that the Griffin poll wasn’t realistic. “You have to be an idiot to believe that,” he texted Ladra.
“I am in a runoff with Higgins,” added Diaz de la Portilla, who paid $27,500 last month for his own poll, which he declined to share.
The organizers say the cutoff was 10% in the Griffin Catalyst poll. That’s convenient for them — and a little convenient for Griffin, who’s been spending big on “civic engagement” efforts since moving Citadel to Miami from Chicago.
But let’s be honest: Any debate without Crazy Joe and ADLP is going to feel… quieter. No fireworks. No finger-pointing. No reason for extra security. That might make for smoother television, but it also sanitizes what has been a messy, colorful race — and takes two of the biggest political personalities in the city out of the mix.
Ken hitting Eileen is not as much fun as when he hits Alex.
Read related: Fundraising reports for Miami mayoral race show millions are being invested
And by cherry-picking who’s “serious” enough to stand under the bright lights, the debate hosts are shaping the narrative, perhaps to their favor.
Suarez gets legitimacy. Higgins gets exposure. Russell gets a chance to look sensible. González gets validation.
But in a city where politics is performance art, this debate might end up remembered less for what’s said on stage than for who got cut from the script.
The lights go up at 7 p.m. Thursday on NBC6 and miamiherald.com.

Help Ladra keep bringing you deep coverage of the Miami election you can’t get anywhere else with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. And thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.

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Part of a series of profiles about the Miami mayoral candidates
It’s not like the Miami mayoral race needed another long shot candidate to crowd up the ballot, but Laura Anderson is running anyway. Anderson is one of the 13 people who want to be the mayor — but the only one who openly identifies as a socialist.
She’s never held office before. She’s not a developer, not a fundraiser, not a well-heeled civic name. She’s a freight railroad conductor, a Socialist Workers Party member, and a downtown resident with a vision that comes from the rails, not the boardrooms.
Read related: June Savage: The uninvited guest who won’t stay quiet in Miami mayor’s race
Born in St. Charles, Illinois, raised in the American Midwest, Anderson lived in Hialeah for about 14 months before she made her way in 2023 to Miami’s Model City neighborhood, where she lives and works for CSX Transportation. She’s a proud union member of SMART-TD Local 1138, a visible face of labor in transit and freight.
Anderson joined the Socialist Workers Party in the early ’90s during her fights against immigrant worker suppression (think Proposition 187 in California), protests over Rodney King, and solidarity missions to Cuba.
She is appealing to the working people of Miami who keep getting squeezed from every direction. Anderson wants a city that centers their attention on labor, housing, public transport, and community programs — not luxury towers and developer tax breaks.
Her campaign messaging is loud and clear in the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey — and sort of new to Miami politics: She opposes U.S. imprialism abroad, calls for amnesty for undocumented workers, and frames the race as part of a broader workers’ struggle. Anderson backs union-led public works programs — more schools, bridges, housing — to put people to work. And she vows to defend workers’ rights, freedom of speech, assembly, due process, and push against capitalist interests she says currently dominate government.
She is going to have a hard time getting that message across with only $1,250 in campaign funds reported through September. But maybe the campaign for mayor is not the point. Anderson also uses campaign stops to promote The Militant newsweekly and socialist literature, often appearing at book fairs and labor events.
Read related: Michael Hepburn writes ‘Love Letter’ to Miami, but will voters actually read it?
There are pluses and minuses to being Laura Anderson. The strengths: She’s authentic. In a race cluttered with suits and slogans, a conductor with union ties carries a kind of moral weight. She also speaks to a class many candidates ignore — the working class, public transit riders, overlooked communities.
Weaknesses? She’s got zero name recognition compared to commissioners, ex-mayors, and big money campaigns. Her platform is ideological and sweeping, while many voters want immediate fixes — trash, water pipes, policing — not system overhaul. And the big one: Socialist identity in Miami politics is the kiss of death. She may as well say she eats babies.
Anderson won’t win this mayor’s race — but perhaps her presence forces the other candidates to address labor, inequality, and the everyday struggles of people who don’t own condos or futures in real estate. In a field crowded with promise and ambition, Anderson is a reminder that governance is not just for the rich and well connected — it’s supposed to be for everyone.

Help Ladra keep bringing you deep coverage of the Miami election you can’t get anywhere else with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. And thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.

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Christian Cevallos, a home developer and former Miami-Dade County community council member, says he’s running for mayor of Miami because somebody needs to go through the city’s books.
“The first thing I’m going to do, and I want to say it real loud,” he told WPLG Local 10. “is I’m going to audit the past government.”
Cevallos, who was born in Ecuador and grew up working odd jobs after moving to Miami — from pizza joints in Little Havana to construction sites — says he knows what it means to build something from scratch. He studied business at Florida International University and later built his own company, America Promanagement LLC, which he says specializes in construction and real estate projects in Kendall.
Well, now it also dabbles in political consulting — as he’s paid himself $5,500 from his campaign account.
He also served two terms on Miami-Dade’s Community Council for District 11, which makes zoning recommendations to the county commission and sounds like a possible conflict of interest, seeing as how he’s in the construction business. But he said it showed him decisions made in ivory towers affect everyday residents — especially families, seniors, and people with special needs.
Read related: Laura Anderson is a rare species: A socialist running for Miami mayor
Cevallos used to live in West Kendall but has lived in the Brickell area since September of 2024 and says his campaign is about fairness and focus. And as he’s bern knocking on doors, he’s learned what voters care about, he said.
“They don’t want to know anything about politics because Miami has had such a bad reputation with politicians that they’re tired,” Cevallos said in his interview with WPLG Local 10. They want opportunities and transparency, he added. He wants to post all the city’s expenses online for everyone to see.
He said he wants to work with small developers, not the big corporations to build real affordable housing, cut the permit process for businesses to 90 days, and do more to keep some of the 28 million visitors who fly through Miami International Airport in the Magic City, instead of being a stop station to Orlando or Miami Beach. “Sometimes we have good parties, but we need to have more activities for people, for families.”
But his biggest talking point might be about taxes. He wants to cut property taxes completely for seniors and says it’s possible to lower overall property taxes by 25%. Where would he find the money: Salaries. He says there are a lot of overpaid city staffers.
Cevallos also is unafraid to call out the city’s neglect of its own communities. “Recently I was walking through Overtown and Little Haiti and some of these neighborhoods that need a lot of help.”
Cevallos’s campaign isn’t flashy — he doesn’t have the deep pockets or the name recognition of the political lifers in the race — but he’s betting that voters are ready for a builder who wants to clean up instead of cash in.
Still, Ladra can’t help but raise an eyebrow. Auditing City Hall sounds nice, but it’s also one of those promises that sound better on paper than in practice. Cutting taxes by a quarter while improving city services? That seems impossible.
But Cevallos insists he’s different — not one of those “big developers” he blames for Miami’s affordability mess. Whether voters buy that distinction will depend on how well he sells it between now and November 4.
Because in Miami politics, transparency is everyone’s favorite word — right up until the lights come on.

Help Ladra keep bringing you deep coverage of the Miami election you can’t get anywhere else with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. And thank you for your support of independent, watchdog journalism.

The post Christian Cevallos: Immigrant builder runs for Miami mayor to audit City Hall appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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First in a series of profiles about the Miami mayoral candidates
Miami mayoral candidate Michael Hepburn says he’s “on the verge of making history” as Miami’s first black mayor. That’s a bold and confident statement — and one Ladra has heard before from more than one well-intentioned candidate whose campaign never made it past early voting.
Hepburn, a Miami native whose family roots in the city go back to 1896, is one of the other seven — not one of the six candidates considered frontrunners in a race that will certainly end in a runoff. But he is, arguably, the most exciting.
Running on a working-class platform he calls a “love letter” to his hometown. The non-profit executive, self-proclaimed sports and entertainment entrepreneur and civic advocate says he’s connected with 25,000 Miami households and stands as “the first Black Miamian to ever execute a bonafide viable campaign” for the city’s top job.
That “viable” part is where Ladra cocks her head a little.
Because while Hepburn’s passion is undeniable — his press releases and his website read more like a halftime pep talk than a political announcement — the climb to City Hall is a steep one, lined with big names, big money, and big egos. Hepburn, by his own admission, is “not a millionaire” and “not a recycled elected official.”
Which is exactly what Ladra likes about him — but also what makes this a long shot.
Read related: Primetime politics: Local 10 News puts Miami mayoral hopefuls in the hot seat
Hepburn has one notable endorsement — from entrepreneur Maxwell “Max” Martinez, who dropped out of the race before qualifying. Martinez, who placed second in the 2021 mayoral race against Francis Suarez, said he met Hepburn during that race, when Hepburn was running for city commission. He’s not only impressed with his work ethic, he also thinks that Hepburn can help drive policy and he likes that he’s a fresh face.
“The other names on the ballot have all been in office — you’re currently living in the results of their work,” Martinez, a fellow Democrat, said of Hepburn in a story in Florida Politics last month. “Mike fights the right way, and he’s never bowed to developer money or special interests.”
His campaign finance reports reflect that. Of the $36,000 and change he has reported raising, almost $34K comes from himself. The rest are in small donations, no bigger than $100. There are a lot of $44 contributions, to signify that he would be the city’s 44th mayor.
Hepburn, who won a Miami Herald Silver Night at Miami Central High, ran for commission in 2021 in District 5 and came in third, behind former appointed incumbent Commissioner Jeffrey Watson and Commission Chairwoman Christine King, who won that race with 65% of the vote and is up for re-election on the November ballot. This year, you can see many of King’s yard signs with Hepburn’s.
That’s by design.
“Because of District 5 is why I have a path to the runoff,” Hepburn told Political Cortadito. He didn’t want to compete with King for votes. He wants to share them with her.
“If I can cultivate my base and also galvanize those other communities in the city, then I have just as good a chance as anybody else,” Hepburn said, adding that the black vote is underestimated. There were 18,000 Miami black voters in the 2024 presidential election.
“They’re not engaged locally but they’ve never had anyone to vote for,” Hepburn told Ladra. “We’ve always been relegated to our district. I’m the first person who looks like me to run for mayor.”
Hepburn also ran for state rep twice and congress once — so this is his fifth try for public office — and has volunteered with the Miami Parks & Recreation Advisory Board’s Community Emergency Response Team, as a charter member of AmeriCorps and a co-founder of the Allapattah Neighborhood Association.
He is the executive director and principal of Reimagine Miami Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit he founded in 2021 that supposedly helps cover college expenses for public high school graduates — and has reportedly already doled out more than $160,000 to students. Funding sources could not be identified. Ladra could not find the non-profits 990s online, but small charities with gross receipts of under $50,000 are not required to file them.
Among the long shot would-be also-rans, Hepburn is a star. He’s already got some name-rec and he’s hitting the right populist notes: promising to lower the cost of living for working people, stand up to special interests, fire the city manager, and restructure the mayor’s office into five focused functions with 44 policy actions — a level of detail most Miami candidates haven’t even imagined.
He also vows to “take back the power of the dais” and “stand up against corruption,” which in this city is practically a campaign requirement. If you don’t say you’ll fight corruption in Miami, are you even running?
Read related: One-liners and other memorable moments from Miami mayoral debate
Hepburn’s plan touches on all the civic buzzwords: affordable housing, climate resilience, neighborhood safety, and uplifting children and seniors. But to break through the noise, he’ll need more than a heartfelt letter — he’ll need cash, coalition, and credibility beyond community boards. He couldn’t even get the 5% needed to be on the stage at the Downtown Neighbors Association’s mayoral debate last month, and called for the community to boycott the event.
He also suspended his campaign for a bit in June to try to recall Commissioner Damian Pardo for sponsoring the ordinance that moved the city elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years, which effectively cancelled this year’s mayoral race, where he had already been campaigning for months. Years? Another candidate, former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, filed the lawsuit that forced the city to rescind the ordinance (it was found to violate the city and county charter) and put the race back on.
That said, there’s something refreshing about Hepburn’s tone. He sounds like someone who actually rides the bus, who has waited at a hot corner for the 7, the 11 or the 27A, and who still believes that City Hall can be fixed from the inside.
Maybe it’s naïve. Or maybe it’s the kind of earnestness this city needs after years of headlines about FBI probes, absentee mayors, and million-dollar condos no one lives in.
Either way, Hepburn is right about one thing: it’s personal.
And if history is made in November — and that’s a big if — it won’t be because of money or dynasty names. It’ll be because enough working-class Miamians decided to believe in one of their own.
The post Michael Hepburn writes ‘Love Letter’ to Miami, but will voters actually read it? appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Here we go. The political season just got real.
Miami-Dade’s Elections Department has mailed out the first batch of vote-by-mail or absentee ballots for the upcoming Nov. 4 municipal elections in Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Homestead and Surfside — which means the mailboxes in those zip codes are about to get a workout.
About 39,000 ballots rolled out of the county’s elections warehouse in Doral Monday morning, and were loaded onto a U.S. Postal Service truck under the watchful eye of the media and Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina García, who made sure everyone saw the process. Cameras rolling, ballots stacked, democracy in motion.
Read related: The end of absentee ballots? Who’s crying in Miami-Dade County?
The bulk of those (21,258) were sent to Miami voters, who are looking at a historic mayoral election to replace the termed out Francis Suarez — with no fewer than 13 candidates — and two commission races, including the District 3 race to replace the termed out Joe Carollo, who is running for mayor. Another 8.041 went to city of Hialeah voters, which seems low.
“Building the public’s trust through secure, fair, accurate, and accessible elections is my pledge,” García said in a statement, adding that vote-by-mail remains one of three ways Miami-Dade voters can cast their ballots — along with early voting and Election Day itself.
On Monday, before the TV cameras, Garcia said that the absentee voting process was safe, even though President Donald Trump says otherwise, because election workers check the signature every step of the way. “Voting by mail in Florida is very secure,” she said.
Maybe it is now, after several local and state laws have changed. And as a former campaign operative for the likes of former Congressman David Rivera and former Sen. Frank Artiles — who paid a sham candidate $50,000 to fix a Florida Senate race in 2020 — Garcia should know better than anyone.
Miami-Dade has a long storied past of absentee ballot fraud and other misgivings. The boleteros who handle these ABs have long been part of the local voting scene. They didn’t just create just an industry. They created a culture.
Read related: Frank Artiles arrested for sham state senate election — but was he alone?
One of the oldest known and possibly most notorious chapters was the 1997 Miami mayoral election. There was evidence of fraud — people casting ABs from Westchester, Broward and beyond the grave — that eventually overturned the election and won The Miami Herald a Pulitzer for investigative journalism (Ladra’s second).
It was pretty quiet on the absentee front until 2011, when several people were caught harvesting absentee ballots during the special post-recall mayoral election and 2012, when a Hialeah ballot ring was investigated by the Miami-Dade Police public corruption unit later decimated by former Mayor Carlos Gimenez after (read: because) he was implicated in it.
Among the characters arrested for some kind of absentee ballot shenanigans: Sergio “El Tio” Robaina, a relative of former Mayor Julio Robaina, Miami-Dade District 13 aide Anamary Pedrosa — who was working in then county Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo‘s Hialeah office when she was caught stuffing ballots into the trunk of her car — and Deisy Cabrera, who got a “pan con bistec” delivered to her in a paper bag by Commissioner Rene Garcia after she was released.
In response, Miami-Dade passed a law that nobody could carry more than two ballots at a time.
In 2013, two men were arrested after they allegedly visited a Homestead home and filled out four people’s absentee ballots against their desires. They also allegedly possessed more than two ballots at a time.
As the use of vote-by-mail or absentee ballots increased, the Florida legislature also responded, with new ID requirements and ballot drop box limits in 2020 and a new law that requires the renewal of absentee or vote-by-mail ballot requests after every major election cycle. Previously, an absentee ballot request would last at least two cycles.
Many of the campaigns for the candidates in these five cities with elections next month have been focused on getting absentee ballot requests submitted. And this is the moment they’ve all been waiting — and fundraising — for.
Stacks of ABs are loaded on a truck and headed for the post office.
Now that those ballots are out, campaign mailers will start hitting doorsteps fast. Expect the flood of glossy flyers, “urgent messages,” and last-minute text “reminders” to vote. Some will arrive so often you’ll start to think your mail carrier’s on the campaign payroll. Then it will be the phone calls from the campaigns to make sure you mailed your ballot back.
This is when campaigns shift from yard signs and social media to the real battleground — the kitchen table. Because once people start filling in those bubbles, it’s game on. Because now that those ballots are out — every candidate, consultant, and campaign manager in the 305 is hitting “send” on a hundred different voter contact plans.
Enjoy the brief calm before your mailbox fills with “friends of,” and “for the future of,” and “we can’t afford four more years of…”
You know the drill.
Let the games begin.

A reminder for voters
If you want to vote by mail and haven’t requested your ballot yet, there’s still time — but pay attention to the fine print.
Under Florida’s new rules, any vote-by-mail requests made before the 2024 general election expired on Jan. 1, 2025. That means you have to renew your request if you haven’t already.
Ballots cannot be forwarded by the Post Office, so if you’ve moved or will be away, you’ll need to submit a Statewide Vote-By-Mail Ballot Request Form with your signature.
And remember: your completed ballot must be received (not just postmarked) by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 4, or it doesn’t count. So don’t wait till the last minute — mail it early so the elections office can contact you if there’s a problem with your signature.
More info, and a link to request an absentee ballot, is at www.votemiamidade.gov.

The post ABs are out for November 4 elections — and so is the flood of campaign mail appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Six of the 13 candidates in the Nov. 4 Miami mayoral race will face off on stage at the Hyatt Regency downtown for a real, bonafide debate starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
They are: Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, former Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla, former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell and former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, the first Cuban-born mayor of Miami in 1985, wanting a comeback 40 years later.
For those of us who are watching from home — it will be broadcast live on CBS News Miami — there’s something we can do to make it more, um, soportable. This is the first Political Cortadito-sanctioned drinking game and everyone is urged to be responsible and stay put. Don’t pull a Pepe Diaz and get arrested for DUI.
Read related: Miami mayoral hopefuls face off — but only the “top six” make debate cut
Since there are a few expected quips, zingers and BS lines to come out of the candidates’ mouths Tuesday night, why don’t we play along? The rules are real simple. Take a bottle of your choice of alcohol. And then follow these instructions, carefully.
Take a sip or a shot when:

Joe Carollo interrupts someone before they finish their sentence.
Alex Díaz de la Portilla blames the media, the feds, or “political enemies.”
Emilio González says “manager” or “efficient government.”
Eileen Higgins mentions transparency or accountability.
Ken Russell tries to play the peacemaker.
Xavier Suárez references his experience or calls back to the “old days.”

Take two sips or two shots when:

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