His time is not now and he is, apparently, not ready: After days of a rumored relinquishment, on the heels of one major campaign setback after another, Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez will drop out of the mayoral race after all.
He told Ladra it is due to a variety of reasons, including a personal one that is great news: After four years of trying, his wife is pregnant.
But Suarez also admitted that the series of blows his campaign has received in the last few weeks made it impossible for him to go on.
“That’s an accurate thing to say,” the commissioner said, his voice hoarse from emotion or all the talking he’s been doing. “There were a series of negative things and they were a distraction.
“I saw a campaign that was increasingly not about the issues. It had taken a very negative tone,” Suarez told Ladra just after 5:30 p.m. Monday, adding that he had already spoken to Mayor Tomas Regalado about it.
“I told him I had made my decision and that I would work with him on issues we agree on and that I will continue to push for the things I think our city needs,” Suarez said.
He also spoke to the soccer team of candidates who were campaigning for the seat he would vacate on the commission. he told Ladra he will make the announcement publicly on Tuesday, which would have been the deadline for him to resign from his commission seat to have the races on the same ballot.
“I had always told them that I was in the middle of a four-year term and that there was always a possibility something would happen,” Suarez said..
And somethings did, indeed, happen.
Suarez, 35, was already on an uphill battle in the polling numbers — though one that many thought could be turned around — when the problems started in June. That’s when Miami-Dade Police public corruption investigators (you know, the ones that don’t exist anymore) went to the homes of two of his campaign staffers to confiscate computers in an investigation into absentee ballot fraud. The workers had gathered paper absentee ballot requests at an event and made the mistake of requesting them online for the voters, which is illegal. Last week, Juan Pablo Baggini and Esteban “Stevie” Suarez, the commissioner’s cousin, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges and will serve one year of probation.
In the span of those six or so weeks, the commissioner took a little flack for a mailer that capitalized on the death of a young Miami Beach tag artist at the hands of zealous police and then he had to fire a staffer for an inappropriate tweet that got blown way out of proportion.
The rumors were first reported in Political Cortadito last week after Baggini and Suarez the cousin took their pleas. Suarez, the commissioner, was hemming and hawing when I spoke to him Friday. “For now, we are continuing on course,” he said. “For now, we will continue to campaign as we have been,” he added. “For now… for now… for now…”
Ladra should have seen this coming.
The only thing that kept the candidacy hanging by a thread was poll numbers that I heard had been leaked by one of the candidates for his commission seat that showed him in a dead heat with Regalado — in the mayor’s stronghold. And while I hear that he did some rush poll in these past few days that may have led him to this move, Suarez said he had not polled.
“I don’t make my decisions based on polls,” he said.
Suarez said he would make the announcement public on Tuesday which would have been the deadline for him to resign from his commission seat, which now he can hold. He will also probably start calling supporters and donors to see what they want him to do with the unspent balance of his million dollar golden campaign. He hasn’t spoken to them yet.
“I haven’t thought that through yet. I think it’s going to be fine. I’m a sitting commissioner and people who support me have always supported me,” he told Ladra, adding that he may very well run for the seat in the future.
“Of course. People have lost elections and come back,” he said. “I didn’t lose an election. I just decided to sit this one out.”
And he can focus on the things that really matter, like his wife’s health — this stress can’t be good for her — and the birth of his first child, which is something special and much more important than any city election.
Because he might still make a great mayor one day. But he’s going to be a great dad first.
Beleaguered Francis Suarez drops out of Miami mayoral race added by Ladra on
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