Eileen Higgins: An engineer who wants to run Miami like a well-oiled machine

Part of a series of profiles about the Miami mayoral candidates
Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins wants to make history as the city of Miami’s first female mayor. And she just might have got the money, the mailing lists, and the establishment muscle to do it.
The District 5 commissioner has spent six years mastering the county bureaucracy, but critics say she’s also mastered the art of pleasing the developers and lobbyists who helped build her war chest. Higgins is the only candidate who qualified by petition and says she’s running for mayor to “make government work for people,” But some Miamians worry that only means her people. Known for her process-driven style and calm, bilingual polish, “La Gringa” Higgins is selling experience and competence. Her opponents call it complicity.
An engineer by training with an MBA from Cornell, the self-admitted nerd traded gears and spreadsheets for civic life and was elected county commissioner for District 5 in 2018’s special election to replace Bruno Barreiro, who had resigned to run for Congress. The district includes a part of Miami Beach, but is mostly made up of Brickell, Downtown and Little Havana. And it was a surprise to everyone that she won, beating Zoraida Barreiro, the incumbent’s wife, with 53% of the vote in a runoff after both women edged out former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, before he ran for city of Miami commissioner.
Four years later, she held on the the seat against ADLP’s baby brother, former Miami-Dade School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla in what had become an ugly race full of hit pieces that called her a communist and an outsider.
All the while, she’s been selling herself as the wonk who can fix the all the government messes. Even though some say she helps create them.
Read related: Eileen Higgins makes history leading special county race against the odds
Her pitch for Miami mayor? Simple, practical, and annoyingly effective: cut the red tape, speed up permitting, expand transit, protect neighborhoods, and manage money so projects actually get built. On the stump she leans into a technocrat’s confidence: “Fix the system and the outcomes will follow.” That message has given her early traction — a summer poll showed Higgins with the biggest name recognition and a sizable lead among declared and rumored candidates.
She runs like an organizer who learned to love process. Higgins’ campaign website reads like a service-delivery memo: streamline permitting so small builders and nonprofits can move forward easier, push resilience and affordable-housing partnerships that actually produce units, and defend free local transit like trolleys and Metromover — never mind that she just two months ago proposed charging $1,200 a year for downtown residents to use the Metromover. Even though she is probably the only one of the candidates who uses the public bus and rapid transit regularly.
Higgins says her policy platform equals “no drama, just results.” And that may be the reason why a lot of national and local politicians and organizations are piling in behind her.
EMILY’s List — the big gun for pro-choice women candidates — endorsed Higgins this summer. Local heavyweights and allied electeds have followed suit: former Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber and South Miami Mayor Javier Fernández endorsed her, and then Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava gave her a very public boost. That matters in a messy field: endorsements buy earned media, volunteers, and credibility.
Read related: Daniella Levine Cava gives Higgins the expected abrazo in Miami mayor’s race
On the debate stage, Higgins has been the counterpoint to the showmen, the antidote to the antics. Ladra felt every one of her eyerolls during the Downtown Neighbors Association debate last month when other candidates let their crazy out. But as candidates traded sparks about corruption and character, Higgins came off like the person who actually reads the permits — she drilled into the city’s broken permitting process and argued that bad management, not ideology, is slowing housing and infrastructure.
She’s been a mostly “do no harm” kind of candidate — leaving the mud-slinging to the Democratic Party — but she did take a few digs during the DNA debate to set herself apart from the other candidates.
“If you want someone who spends their days twittering and TikToking, you’ll find that on the ballot,” she said, and she must have been referring to former Commissioner Ken Russell, the other big name Dem on the ballot stripping away votes. “If you want someone who spends their days in court, you’ll find that on your ballot,” Higgins added, and we know she’s talking about Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has been sued for his abuse of power and has cost the city at least $10 million in legal fees.
“If you want someone who has already mismanaged the city, you have that, too,” she quipped. Former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez — who was headed into a runoff with Higgins in an early poll — asked “was that for me?” He knows it was.
Read related: One-liners and other memorable moments from Miami mayoral debate
Her strengths include enviable name recognition, county track record (and pulpit) and engineering background, at a time when resiliency and infrastructure are key. She also has all those endorsements, which are not only good for promoting her credebility but actually translate to dollars and feet on the ground .
Weaknesses? Her pitch is not sexy. Voters love fixes until those fixes require painful political priorities to be picked. Permitting reform is crucial — but it isn’t a viral TikTok soundbite. Will her competence message move the needle with voters who want fast relief on housing and taxes? That’s the test. And while she’s a Democrat, Higgins is nothing if not pragmatic. That pleases moderates and unions but it can irritate progressives who want bold structural change (e.g., aggressive inclusionary zoning or confrontational fights with Tallahassee).
Then there’s the inherent baggage of the track record she touts. She’s running in a cycle where “cleaning up City Hall” is a veritable staple. Except some see Higgins as part of the system she says she’s gonna fix.
The supposed transit champion wanted in 2022 to sideline the Citizens Independent Transportation Trust, which provides oversight of the half penny sales tax spending, by amending the process so that projects and contracts that would normally go to the CITT first would go straight to the county commission instead. Like that’s a good idea. She also wanted the CITT to stop looking at $1 million plus projects that do not use surtax funds — a practice started when the administration began to use the half-penny monies for operating expenses — and for the commission to have an override power on CITT recommendations with a simple majority, rather than the 2/3 vote needed.
Classic power grab.
Read related: CITT rejects Eileen Higgins’ strike to strip oversight on transit contracts
Critics have also questioned her green stripes after she supported moves the county made that advanced construction of the country’s largest waste-to-energy facility, despite dozens if not hundreds of emails and speakers against it and warnings from every single environmental group.
And there’s the fact that one of the political action committees she’s connected to, Rebrand Politics, has accepted $19,000 from Florida Power & Light, one of the main bidders on what will be a $1.9 billion, 30-year project. Meanwhile, she refused to sit with the Sierra Club until they fired Russell as their lobbyist. And then she didn’t meet with them anyway.
That stinks worse than the garbage.
Then during the last budget process, she voted for a “restructuring” that environmentalists say will actually weaken the Division of Environmental Resources Management — better known as DERM — and hand developers a major win by taking away the only real watchdog on the permits for wetlands, mangroves and other environmentally sensitive properties. She knows that was good for developers. She’s a nerd, remember?
Some critics say that just proves she’s part of the pro-development, pro-process establishment. It is true that a huge chunk of the contributions to her political action committee comes from developers or real estate and construction interests. It includes a $50,000 check from the Related Group and Jorge Perez allegedly told Ken Russell that Higgins “has been very, very good to us.”
Read related: Developers get gift-wrapped, weaker DERM in Miami-Dade budget shuffle
La Gringa has raised at least $813,000 combined in her campaign account and her political action committee, Ethical Leadership for Miami — though her political consultant, Christian Ulvert, has other PACs he can tap into. Before it’s over Nov. 4, Camp Eileen will likely have spent more than $1 million between all her accounts.
Higgins may not spark fireworks, but she is the candidate for voters who want the lights turned on and the potholes filled without a reality-TV meltdown. She appeals to developers, sure. But also to business leaders, transit advocates, union members, teachers, neighborhood groups, and voters who are tired of noise and want outcomes. Her endorsements, fundraising, ground game machinery and early polling give her a structural edge in a crowded field.
But Miami’s electorate is allergic to bland competence if it smells like business-as-usual.
If a rival frames Higgins as all talk and no walk — or if the race turns on culture war flashpoints where her technocratic instincts don’t translate into punchy TV moments — her early lead could erode. Voter turnout will decide whether process fixes win hearts the way that free, frozen turkeys at Thanksgiving do.
In this messy mayoral race, where anger and nostalgia and big promises all have airtime, the quiet competent candidate must prove one thing: that competence can feel like change. If she can make permits and trolleys feel like justice, she wins. If she can’t, Miami will pick drama over decent governance — again.
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