Emilio Gonzalez Miami mayoral PAC raises almost $700K in three months

Half a mil is from candidate’s asset management firm

Even before former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez won his lawsuit against the city of Miami for cancelling this year’s election, the retired Army colonel had raised a little more than $750,000 for his mayoral run between his campaign account and his political action committee, Mission Miami.

His campaign account has raised a modest $69,280, according to the campaign finance reports for the second quarter, through June 30. But his PAC, formed in March and chaired by Tallahassee operative Christian R. Camara, raked in a jaw-dropping $681,055 in just three months. And if you think that came in $20 checks from abuelitas, think again.

El pez gordo here is a Wall Street outfit called RIA R Squared — an investment management firm that primarily serves foreign institutional investors. It’s also where Gonzalez has worked for the last five years after leaving the city manager’s job in 2020 under pressure by the commission, primarily Commissioner Joe Carollo. Gonzalez is a partner at R Squared, which manages approximately $1 billion in assets on a “discretionary basis” — and dropped not one, but two $250,000 checks to Mission Miami in April. That’s half a million bucks right there, gente. Enough to buy two condos in Allapattah. Cash.

There’s also a $15,000 contribution from Timothy Patrick Torline, who is a financial advisor at an R Squared subsidiary. And $1,000 from David Kang, the CEO of that subsidiary.

“They believe in me,” Gonzalez told Political Cortadito, adding that he does no sales and his company does no business in the state of Florida. “They simply believe in what I stand for and my vision for the city.”

Gonzalez, who has never run for office or had a political action committee before, is starting from scratch and doesn’t have anybody to shake down like Carollo does. He doesn’t have the power of incumbency like Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, whose PAC raised $250,000 in the same period.

The other big donors to the Gonzalez Mission Miami PAC are:

$30,000 in two checks, for $18K and $12K, from Palmetto Bay’s Roger West, CEO of Pyramids Property Management.
$25,000 from SGD Offices, a Doral company with Max Alvarez as one of its principals.
$25,000 from Peninsula 2705 LLC, a North Miami Beach real estate holding.
$23,000 from the law offices of Miguel Inda-Romero.
$10,000 from the Carlos M. De La Cruz Revocable Trust in Key Biscayne.
$10,000 from Maybe Beach attorney Jay Eric Gould.
$10,000 from Juan “J.C.” Flores, a Tallahassee political operative who has worked for Marco Rubio and Carlos Giménez.
$10,000 from Black River Productions, an audio studio in Doral.

On paper, Gonzalez’s own campaign account looks modest by comparison: about $69,000 raised in Q2 from nearly 146 donors, most of them local. Notable names include:

Miami-Dade Commissioner Roberto “Rob” Gonzalez (no relation).
Attorney Adele Valencia, former director of code compliance in Miami and onetime aide to then-commissioner Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. She is now with LSN Partners, a prolific lobbying firm in Miami-Dade.
Former Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina.
Attorney and lobbyist Nelson Diaz, former chair of the Miami-Dade Republican Party.
Attorney Jeffrey Gutchess, who represented the Little Havana Ball & Chain owners who sued Carollo and the city and won a $63.5 million jury award.
Retired Banker Leonard Abess, former owner of the City National Bank of Florida, the second-largest financial institution in Florida at one time.
Christi Reeves-Tasker, a two-time District 2 commission candidate who is now a state committee woman with the Republican Party.
Former Miami Assistant City Manager (2018-2020) Sandra Bridgeman, who is now Chief Financial Officer for the Greater Miami Expressway Agency (GMX).
Pedro Munilla, of the construction family that’s been winning — and losing — big public contracts for years.
Architect Willy Bermello, who is also on Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez procurement task force.

These are brave people. They could easily become targets of Carollo’s wrath by openly supporting one of his biggest enemies. If any of them live in the city of Miami, they risk a visit from code enforcement.

Between the campaign account and the PAC, the Gonzalez team spent almost $100,000 through June 30 — mostly on the same consultants. Dark Horse Strategies, or Emiliano Antuñez, got the bulk with about $50,000 for data, canvassing, printing, text messaging and consulting. Brick by Brick Strategies, owned by Damian Jané, a one-time chief of staff in the city of Miami, got paid $17,262 for events, printing, video production and reimbursements.

A former immigration services chief under George W. Bush, ex director of Miami International Airport and founding member of Veterans for Trump, Gonzalez is one of 11 candidates who have signed up to replace term-limited Mayor Francis Suarez., who is appealing an appeal court’s ruling that the city’s moving of the election from odd to even years without voter approval was a no-no. Carollo and former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla have also threatened to run but have not filed any paperwork. The deadline to qualify is Sept. 20.

Gonzalez is also the only one who took the move to change the election date — which essentially cancelled this November’s mayoral and commission races — to court. Everyone complained about it: Higgins, former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, former Miami Commissioner and onetime congressional candidate Ken Russell and some of the more grassroots, lesser-known candidates made dramatic public statements about how the commission was stealing an election to maintain power.

But nobody did squat. Except Gonzalez.

And the candidate still has $653,000 on hand, between his PAC and his campaign account, to remind voters about that.

Emilio Gonzalez, Joe Carollo, Miami Elections 2025

Emilio Gonzalez Miami mayoral PAC raises almost $700K in three months added by Ladra on August 13, 2025
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