Jesse Scheckner
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera is running for Vice Chair of the Republican Party of Florida’s (RPOF).
Just hours after the RPOF Executive Committee booted Christian Ziegler as Chair and elected Vice Chair Evan Power to replace him, Cabrera announced his bid to succeed Power.
“I am thrilled to announce my candidacy for Vice Chairman of the RPOF,” Cabrera said in a statement.
“I am at the forefront of a generational transformation of Florida’s most populous county into a beacon of freedom. … To keep this momentum growing, we must continue expanding our voter registration margins, increase our presence on the ground, and never (waver) from the grassroots support that has propelled Florida to the forefront of the America-First Movement.”
Cabrera, who in November won election as a Republican State Committeeman, knows a thing or two about building a conservative support base in the Sunshine State.
After volunteering with the Republican Executive Committee, his first political job was on the 2012 Florida House campaign of Florida Supreme Court Justice John Couriel. He then worked on Carlos Curbelo’s 2014 congressional campaign as a field director, a role he traded for a director of constituent service job after Curbelo won office.
From there, Cabrera became the South Florida field director for the LIBRE Initiative, a Latino conservative advocacy nonprofit. In 2015, he was appointed as a Councilman to a Miami-Dade land use zoning board. He was elected to a full term in 2016.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush hired him to lead his presidential campaign in the Miami-Dade area that same year. Donald Trump came knocking four years later during his re-election effort.
As Florida State Director for Donald J. Trump for President and the Republican National Committee, Cabrera, among other things, created and helmed a voter contact program 200 staffers strong. The result was the highest level of registered Republicans in Florida history, delivering the state to Trump and paving the way for registered Florida Republicans in late 2021 to outnumber registered Florida Democrats for the first time in history.
Trump later endorsed Cabrera — twice — for the Miami-Dade Commission. There’s already speculation the former President may do so again for Cabrera’s run at the state party’s Vice Chair seat.
Ziegler’s ouster came amid a sex scandal his wife, Sarasota County School Board member Bridget Ziegler, and an unnamed woman who filed charges of rape against him.
Prior to the alleged rape incident, the three had engaged consensually in at least one sexual encounter. Bridget Ziegler, a co-founder of the conservative Moms for Liberty movement that championed Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and the removal of myriad books from classrooms and school libraries, continues to face calls for her resignation.
Lee County GOP Chair Michael Thompson, who last month posted to X a photo of the RPOF document censuring Christian Ziegler and demanding his resignation, is also running for Vice Chair.
