Miami voters appeared to break with past politics on Tuesday, selecting at least one mayoral candidate who has not previously been elected to a city office to compete in a runoff next month, according to preliminary results from the Miami-Dade County elections supervisor.
Eileen Higgins, a Miami-Dade County commissioner, received about 36 percent of the vote in the mayoral election, according to unofficial results that still need to be certified. Because she did not receive more than 50 percent of the vote, Ms. Higgins, 61, will face off against the second-place finisher on Dec. 9.
That appeared likely to be Emilio T. González, 68, a former appointed city manager. He received about 19 percent of the vote, according to the elections supervisor, though he held only a narrow margin over Ken Russell, a former city commissioner.
Mr. Russell conceded to Mr. González on Tuesday night.
Family dynasties have long reigned in Miami politics. But on Tuesday, voters rejected the three mayoral candidates who had other relatives in politics. Voters also did not favor any of the candidates who were current or former commissioners, underscoring the electorate’s desire for change. The top three candidates all called for reform in one way or another.
Mayor Francis X. Suarez, who briefly ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2023, was term-limited. His father, Xavier Suarez, a former mayor, was one of the mayoral candidates on Tuesday’s ballot.
Many of the 13 candidates who ran in the crowded race characterized City Hall as rife with internal dysfunction, despite Miami’s economic boom after the pandemic. Miami, like other major American cities, is in the throes of an affordability crisis.
Though the mayor’s job is nonpartisan, Ms. Higgins is a Democrat and Mr. González a Republican, a distinction that will set up an obvious contrast in the runoff. There are slightly more registered Democrats than Republican in Miami, a city of about half a million people, but Republicans in city elections have often succeeded in getting more of their voters to the polls.
Should she win, Ms. Higgins would become the city’s first female mayor. Miami has not had a Democratic mayor, or a non-Hispanic mayor, since the 1990s.
Before Tuesday’s election, the local Democratic Party had already referred to Mr. González as the MAGA candidate in the race. Mr. González, who knew he was battling for second place against better-known Republicans, touted endorsements from high-profile officials such as Gov. Ron DeSantis to validate his candidacy among G.O.P. voters.
Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico.
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