Miami Mayor-elect Eileen Higgins (D) vowed to get straight to work upon taking office on Wednesday, saying the city is “at the tip of the spear” of affordability concerns in the U.S.
Higgins defeated Republican Emilio Gonzalez by 19 points in Tuesday’s mayoral runoff, marking another victory for Democrats after successes in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City last month.
“The city has to get to work, become more efficient, be more modern in how it embraces technology,” she told reporters at a press conference. “The affordability crisis, we are the tip of the spear in America. We’ve got to build more affordable housing.”
In Miami, a city of roughly 487,000 residents as of last year, the cost of living is 21 percent higher than the national average, according to Payscale, a compensation software and data company. The cost of housing, meanwhile, is 59 percent higher than the national average, while the cost of utilities and groceries are 5 and 11 percent higher than the national mean, respectively.
The median home price in the city is more than $823,000, while the median rent is more than $2,400 per month and the average monthly energy bill costs nearly $218, according to the site.
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A member of the Miami-Dade County Commission from 2018 until this year, Higgins is set to be sworn in later this month. While she is technically the first Democrat elected mayor of Miami since Xavier Suarez in 1997, former Mayor Manny Diaz (I), who served from 2001-09, was the chair of the Florida Democratic Party from 2021-23.
President Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had endorsed Gonzalez in the lead-up to the race. A former city manager, González served on the president’s Homeland Security transition team before his second term.
