Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is eyeing a 2024 White House bid and is posing as the perfect politician to expand the Grand Old Party tent to reach new voters nationwide.
Conventional wisdom has pitted the 2024 GOP presidential nomination race as a heavyweight fight between other prominent Floridians, namely former President Donald Trump and Sunshine State Governor Ron DeSantis.
Mr. Suarez wants a say in the presidential race, however, and traveled to the DC area this week to share his aspirations for higher office. Miami’s mayor said Friday that big decisions remained for him to make in a tweet related to remarks he made to Politico.
“I’m here, because I’m a Hispanic mayor, a Republican, who was considering running for president,” Suarez told Politico. “Part of the reason I’m considering running for president is because I think I can grow the tent – not for an election, but for a generation.”
Florida has once served as a home for GOP presidential candidates. For example, the state produced two candidates who lost to Mr. Trump in the 2016 GOP nomination race — former Governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio.
Mr. Suarez appears to expect three Florida Republicans to have a say in choosing the GOP nominee for 2024.
“I think the race boils down, on the Republican side, to three options: the former president, the governor [Mr. DeSantis] and someone else,” he told Politico. “I think ‘somebody else’ are people, many of them not known, [who] have not yet captivated our people.
Mr. Suarez is counting on Americans going against the expectations of their political preferences when they go to the polls next year. He said former President Barack Obama disrupted campaign politics through micro-contributions and Mr. Trump branded earned media over paid ads.
The Miami mayor thinks another disruption to campaign politics is yet to come. When asked when he would decide to officially enter the fray, he told Politico he didn’t have a specific date, but he thought the candidates should be on stage in an upcoming debate in August.