Spencer Fordin
Renier Diaz de la Portilla got a late start on the race for the District 5 seat on the Miami-Dade County Commission, but he closed with an exclamation point. Diaz de la Portilla took in $141,250 over the last two weeks before Tuesday’s Primary Election, bringing his total raised to $546,700 since entering the race in May.
Incumbent Eileen Higgins, by contrast, raised $386,482 starting in March of last year.
Diaz de la Portilla passed her in fundraising in the penultimate funding period and padded the gap.
The challenger, the brother of Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who served in both the House and Senate, and former Senator and County Commissioner Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, spent $114,242 over the last two weeks.
Diaz de la Portilla made major expenditures to America CV Network ($25,288), Univision ($24,960) and Telemundo ($27,175) for television and radio advertising over the last two weeks.
He averaged $920 from his 594 contributors, and that trend held true in the latest filing period.
Diaz de la Portilla received $917 per donor from 154 contributors over the last two weeks, and he outspent Higgins $467,041 to $356,378 over the life of the campaign.
Higgins, first elected to the County Commission in 2018, received an average of $340 from her 1,135 contributors.
She took in $350 per donor from 92 contributors in her latest filing period for a total of $32,230, and she spent $77,582 in the final two weeks before the Primary Election. Higgins paid $44,586 to MDW Communications for direct mail and $19,780 to Edge Communications for advertising in the final funding period.
The third candidate in the race, Miguel Soliman, has struggled to keep up in funding.
Soliman raised $1,700 in the final funding period and raised $104,605 in total. He spent $99,579, including $20,955 in the final two weeks of the campaign.
If none of the three candidates receives 50% of the vote on Tuesday, the top two candidates will head to a runoff in the November General Election.
