Jesse Scheckner
It’s déjà vu all over again. Raquel Regalado and Cindy Lerner are likely heading to a runoff for the Miami-Dade County Commission’s District 7 seat.
With all precincts reporting Tuesday, Regalado, the incumbent, had 49% of the vote. Lerner, a former Pinecrest Mayor and state lawmaker, had 42%. The remainder went third-place candidate Richard Praschnik, for whom Tuesday night was the end of the road.
To win outright, a candidate had to take more than half the votes cast. Additional votes tallied overnight may swing the numbers slightly, but not likely enough to earn Regalado a win before November.
Regalado told Florida Politics she counted Tuesday’s outcome as a victory and the precursor of another to come later this year.
“I won tonight,” she said, “and I’m looking forward to beating her again in November.”
Lerner remained convinced the district’s residents want a change in representation.
“The power of incumbency isn’t so powerful,” she said by text. “With over 50% of the voters not wanting to re-elect their Commissioner, I stand ready to win the runoff in November.”
Voters in the district will choose between Regalado and Lerner in the Nov. 5 General Election. In terms of policy proposals, temperament, elected experience and funding, there’s no shortage of ways to tell them apart.
Regalado, a former Miami-Dade School Board member, carried several advantages into Election Day. As the incumbent, she could point to her accomplishments at County Hall to bolster her re-election effort. As a Republican serving in a nonpartisan post, she enjoyed cross-aisle support from county and municipal officials.
She also had a war chest five times the size of her more prominent challenger, having raised more than $1 million this cycle.
Lerner, meanwhile, boasted state-level experience and a strong record of environmental work, including the creation of an emission-reduction program and free local transit service in Pinecrest.
During her time as the village’s third Mayor from 2008 to 2016, when she reached term limits, Lerner chaired the National League of Cities’ Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee and won “Municipal Elected Official of the Year” honors from the U.S. Green Building Council’s South Florida chapter.
If elected, she vowed to “fight for honest, ethical government, to take meaningful action on sea-level rise and flooding, and to be a voice for the residents of (District 7) — not developers, lobbyists and corporate polluters.”
The 70-year-old said she wanted to fight government corruption throughout the county, improve county infrastructure to better handle sea-level rise, expand transit with more Metrorail lines and a fully electric Metrobus fleet, and keep the Everglades free of additional development.
A lawyer by training, Lerner faced criticism over the years for her temper, so much so that she included a clip of a particularly testy Pinecrest Village Council meeting she led in her campaign launch video.
“At public meetings, there were heated debates, and at times I did lose my cool,” she said. “But these days, I don’t know about you, but I can’t read the news without getting angry. Corruption, influence peddling, self-dealing, selling out the Everglades to big developers, breaking promises and betraying our communities — I am angry, and I’m fed up. We all should be.”
The Everglades comment is a not-so-subtle knock against Regalado, who voted in November 2022 to override Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s veto of legislation expanding the Urban Development Boundary (UDB) so a 379-acre industrial complex could be built just west of Biscayne Bay near Homestead.
It marked the first expansion in nearly a decade of the UDB, which is meant to safeguard agricultural and vulnerable lands from residential and commercial encroachment. Regalado originally opposed the move, but switched her vote after developers increased the amount of wetlands they would buy and donate to offset the project’s impacts.
Regalado, 50, suffered backlash from the vote. She was Miami-Dade Commission Chair Oliver Gilbert’s first choice for Vice Chair in December 2022, but was passed over by her peers after Democrat Danielle Cohen Higgins, who verbally sparred with her over the UDB vote, nominated Republican Commissioner Anthony Rodriguez instead.
The UDB vote is hardly emblematic of Regalado’s environmental agenda. She led a push to accelerate septic-to-sewer conversions in the county to prevent groundwater pollution and backed several other water improvement initiatives.
Halfway through her first term, she’d already filed hundreds of items encompassing everything from using auxiliary dwelling units to provide more affordable housing to an ordinance mandating autism and sensory training for county employees.
Recently, she teamed with Levine Cava on an effort to close the Miami Seaquarium, which for years faced complaints from animal rights groups and citations for lease violations.
A self-professed workaholic and policy wonk, Regalado is lawyer, radio host and professor at St. Thomas University. She sits on the Board of Directors of intercounty commuter service Tri-Rail and chairs the County Commission’s Infrastructure, Operations and Innovations Committee.
She grew up in politics. Her father, ex-Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, is now running for Miami-Dade Property Appraiser.
Among her endorsers this cycle: Democratic Miami-Dade Commissioner Kionne McGhee, Republican Pinecrest Mayor Joseph Corradino, Democratic South Miami Mayor Javier Fernández, Republican Key Biscayne Mayor Joe Rasco, and nine union and advocacy organizations, including the South Florida PBA and South Florida AFL-CIO.
She vowed, if re-elected, to continue championing neurodiversity inclusion — her two children are on the autism spectrum — while fighting for environmental resilience and economic development. She said she wanted to do more to support first responders, reduce taxes and help seniors. Further advocacy for green infrastructure also made her to-do list.
Praschnik, a 28-year old Republican, sits on a Miami-Dade zoning appeals board and chairs the Kendale Homeowners Association’s public safety panel.
He ran on a platform prioritizing public safety, enhanced education standards and community engagement in schools, supporting responsible zoning that allows development while preserving neighborhoods’ existing character, and lowering toll fees, property taxes and the county gas tax.
He also opposed any additional UDB expansions and criticized Regalado for her support, along with a majority of the County Commission, of a now-stalled plan to redevelop a District 7 golf course into a 550-home complex.
With just $23,000 raised since he entered the race 13 months ago and a far lower name value than his two opponents, Praschnik’s odds of winning were slim.
District 7 covers Pinecrest, Key Biscayne, portions of Coral Gables, South Miami and Miami, including the neighborhoods of Coconut Grove and Virginia Key, and the unincorporated neighborhoods of Kendall and Sunset.
The Miami-Dade Commission is a nonpartisan body, as are its elections.
