DeSantis win in Miami-Dade comes just in time to give Republicans hope for sheriff in ’24

The red wave Gov. Ron DeSantis sent crashing down onto Miami-Dade politics this week could be great timing for Republicans hoping to win the first county election for sheriff since the 1960s.

Florida rules require partisan elections in 2024 for sheriff, tax collector and election supervisor, posts currently reporting to Democratic Mayor Daniella Levine Cava but set to become independent under a recent amendment to the state Constitution.

Identifying candidates by party traditionally meant good news for Democrats running countywide in Miami-Dade until DeSantis broke the party’s 20-year losing streak at the top of the ticket with an 11-point win over Charlie Crist.

READ MORE: See how your Miami-Dade neighborhood voted in Tuesday’s midterm election

“There was the thought those positions would be won by Democratic candidates,” said Armando Ibarra, president of the Miami Young Republicans. “Now I think we’ll have really great Republican candidates running with a good chance of winning.”

DeSantis was the first Republican candidate for governor to win Miami-Dade since Coral Gables resident Jeb Bush in 2002. In 1988, his father, George H.W. Bush, was the last Republican presidential candidate to win the county.

Democrats are wary

Now Democrats are left hoping the DeSantis win didn’t bring lasting electoral math to Miami-Dade ahead of the county’s 2024 elections.

Democrats are blaming an uninspiring candidate in Crist for lousy turnout that will rev up again in time for the presidential cycle to boost local races in a county where Republicans remain in third place, behind Democrats and those voters with no party affiliation.

“Democrats didn’t feel an affinity toward Congressman Crist at the end of the day,” said Dwight Bullard, a former Democratic state senator now working for the Florida Rising advocacy group. “Democrats in 2020 felt they were trying to save the world from Trump. In 2024, it could be Trump again.”

In 2020, Miami-Dade turnout hit 75%, with voters far more energized than this year, when turnout didn’t cross 50%.

In the five largest Miami-Dade precincts with a majority of Black voters, turnout dropped between 25% and 50% Tuesday when compared to results from 2018 when DeSantis lost Miami-Dade to Andrew Gillum, the first Black candidate to be a major party’s gubernatorial nominee in Florida. In that election, Miami-Dade turnout hit 57%.

Party politics fueled the 2020 mayoral race in a way not seen before in Miami-Dade. Levine Cava shared office space and resources with the county Democratic Party and used campaign funds to mobilize Democratic voters.

Her Republican opponent, Esteban “Steve” Bovo, now the mayor of Hialeah, promoted his support of Trump in campaign materials. In the end, both mayoral candidates finished within a point of the presidential contenders. Levine Cava won Miami-Dade by eight points, and Biden won by seven.

The contest was a sharp turn from the 2016 mayoral contest, when incumbent Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican, declined to say if he would vote for Trump until pressed at a televised debate and announced his support for Hillary Clinton.

Four years later, Gimenez was elected to Congress with Trump’s endorsement, and both he and Bovo

spoke at Trump’s Miami rally on Sunday.

Rodney Barreto, a Republican and DeSantis ally who is a partner in a Coral Gables lobbying firm, said he sees the 2016 mayoral race as the last non-partisan contest for that office. “When Gimenez ran for mayor, it wasn’t partisan. He appealed to the left, and he appealed to the right,” Barreto said. “I think those days are over, unfortunately.”

READ MORE: How Biden helped Democrats win the Miami-Dade mayoral race, and reset county politics

Levine Cava looks ahead to the issues in 2024

On Wednesday, Levine Cava said she’s expecting a 2024 race based on the economy, small business, public safety and other non-partisan themes she said were her focus in 2020.

“Every election cycle is different,” she said. “My focus has been, and will always be, taking care of our community and getting things done.”

One potential challenger for Levine Cava in 2024 is Raquel Regalado, a Republican county commissioner who lost to Gimenez in 2016 when Democrats opted not to challenge the incumbent mayor.

She said the DeSantis results are bound to encourage Republicans to focus more on sheriff and other partisan races required by the 2018 constitutional amendment. “I think this changes the conversation for those constitutional offices,” she said.

While the governor’s race gave Republicans a big boost in 2022, Regalado said the White House contenders will make the difference in 2024.

“What drives the turnout is the presidential race,” she said. “If the presidential candidate happens to be DeSantis, brace for impact.”