11 Republicans vie to be Miami-Dade’s first Sheriff in nearly 60 years. Who wins the Primary?

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Republican Miami-Dade voters Tuesday will have no shortage of options in the race for Sheriff.

Eleven candidates, all current or former law enforcement professionals, are running to be the county’s first elected top cop in more than half a century.

Polling, campaigning and fundraising suggest only a handful have any real shot at winning. Of that group, two have been jockeying for months for the front-runner spot.

Miami-Dade hasn’t had an elected Sheriff since 1966, when county voters eliminated the position after a grand jury report revealed rampant corruption within the agency. Instead, the county Mayor today serves as the de facto Sheriff and has since had an appointed Police Director or Chief of Public Safety who reports to them.

That will soon change, due to a 2018 referendum in which 58% of Miami-Dade voters joined a statewide supermajority in approving a constitutional amendment requiring that the county join Florida’s 66 other counties in having an elected Sheriff.

For a while, it appeared former Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez would be a shoo-in for the job. His attempted suicide on July 23 after a domestic dispute at a Sheriff’s conference in Tampa ended that prospect. He dropped out of the race in September.

A flood of candidates followed, all hoping to assume control of Miami-Dade’s $1 billion law enforcement budget, 5,000 or so sworn officers and police employees, the county Corrections and Rehabilitation Department’s $500 million budget and around 3,000 prison and jail workers.

The winner of the Nov. 5 General Election — one of the below candidates or one of four Democrats competing for their party’s slot on the ballot — will be responsible for leading the transition from county government to the independent Sheriff’s Office.

Rosie Cordero-Stutz, Assistant Director of Support Services at the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD), has been working on it. Ramirez appointed her Chair of the Sheriff Internal Transition Team, giving her the responsibility of determining how best to handle the switchover.

She filed to run in October, roughly a month after Ramirez dropped out, and has since amassed close to $436,000 and an impressive roster of endorsers.

A 28-year MDPD veteran, rising through the ranks from working as a street cop to serving as a detective, sergeant, major and in her current administrative role, Cordero-Stutz promises, if elected, to strengthen police-community relations while upholding law-and-order policies.

She vows to have a “zero-tolerance policy” on public corruption, expand mental health services, make the Sheriff’s Office transparent and accountable, and focus on training and professional growth within the agency.

Many GOP notables feel she has the right stuff to get all that done; Donald Trump, Rick Scott, Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez, whose son and daughter-in-law are running Cordero-Stutz’s campaign, have all confirmed their support of her.

So have 27 current Florida Sheriffs and former Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez.

One knock against Cordero-Stutz, 54, is that she doesn’t live in the community she serves. She’s been a Broward County resident since before the turn of the century, but she said she’ll move to Miami-Dade if she wins.

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Joe Sanchez believes longtime residency in Miami-Dade should be a prerequisite for serving as its Sheriff. Not having served in the agency the Sheriff’s Office is replacing is also helpful, he said, considering the goal is to improve on what’s currently in place.

Sanchez entered the Sheriff’s race in January and immediately established himself as a formidable contender with a sizable war chest and a campaign strategy positioning him as an outsider and disrupter.

Through Aug. 2, he stacked more than $587,000 in cash. Rather than chase nods from politicians and organizations, he took a grassroots angle with an “Endorsements that Matter” video series while aligning himself with Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis in ads, flyers and other campaign communications.

Sanchez, 59, served for eight years with the U.S. Army Reserve. In 1998, he was appointed to the Miami Commission, where he stayed until an unsuccessful bid for city Mayor in 2009.

He’s been with the Florida Highway Patrol on and off since 1987 and today serves as an agency spokesperson, though he’s currently on a leave of absence while running for Sheriff. In 1996, the Miami-Dade Commission awarded him the Medal of Valor for his work in the ValuJet search and rescue effort.

If elected, Sanchez said he’ll improve public safety by increasing the county’s police presence. He’s against no-cash bail, for additional mental health services and community policing, and would implement online training modules, legal updates and data analytics to keep officers up-to-speed on best practices.

His actions while campaigning indicate he views Cordero-Stutz as his biggest threat. In May, his campaign launched an attack website labeling her a “RINO” (Republican in name only) for donating $50 to Democrat Charlie Crist’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign and for saying she supports the work of Democratic Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

Cordero-Stutz has fired back by noting that as a Miami Commissioner, Sanchez voted for a 2009 bond plan to build the Marlins baseball stadium that is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $2.6 billion to repay.

In terms of funding, no candidate on either side of the political aisle can touch former Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez, who served as a MDPD lieutenant before heading to County Hall.

But Martinez carries a lot of baggage into the contest. He’s the subject of ongoing criminal prosecution over felony charges of unlawful compensation. Prosecutors say Martinez, whom DeSantis removed from office in September 2022, broke the law by sponsoring county legislation that would have benefited people who paid him $15,000.

Martinez has pleaded not guilty, maintains the payments were for prior consulting work unconnected to the measure, which he withdrew before the County Commission voted on it, and called the case “politically motivated.”

He entered the Sheriff’s race in early June, just over a week before the qualifying deadline. Fundraising through his political committee since January 2021, shortly after he won re-election to the County Commission, combined with money he added through early August to his campaign account, totaled $1.57 million.

Martinez said he wants to make law enforcement and public safety more equitable through community-oriented policing, where cops remain in and become conversant with specific neighborhoods and their denizens. Studies have shown the approach is mutually beneficial.

Mario Knapp, who retired from the MDPD as a major after nearly three decades on the force, is one of the few candidates who filed before Ramirez dropped out. He told Florida Politics he liked and respects the former Police Director, but is confident he can do a better job as Sheriff.

Knapp, 50, served in myriad leadership roles in the department, including as commander of the Crime Suppression Unit, Training Bureau, Seaport Operations Bureau and several district stations. He led MDPD’s Office of Communications, SWAT team, Bomb Squad, Special Events Section and the Marine Patrol, Canine, Motor and Divers units. He also served as the Department’s use-of-force subject matter expert.

Knapp left the Department in 2021 after leading search-and-rescue efforts at the collapsed Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside.

If elected, he intends to reorient Miami-Dade’s law enforcement apparatus to improve emergency response times and increase community policing, maintain an open-door policy to allow better communication and understanding between residents and police, and establish investigative units to pursue unscrupulous public officials and homeowner associations.

He has raised more than $360,000 to campaign for the Sheriff job. He carries endorsements from former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn and the Hispanic Police Officers Association.

MDPD Maj. Jose Aragu, 38, was another October entrant to the Sheriff’s race and did decently in fundraising until last month. Then came a $300,000 infusion from billionaire Citadel hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin, who is backing Levine Cava’s re-election bid, that more than doubled the size of Aragu’s war chest.

Some have posited that Griffin gave to Aragu in an effort to set up an easier General Election contest for Levine Cava’s preferred candidate, Democratic Miami-Dade Public Safety Chief Jame Reyes. Griffin denied that was the case.

Aragu, who joined MDPD in 2006, said he’ll “change the status quo” of the county police force by prioritizing proactive rather than reactive policing strategies. He wants to improve relations with communities, make the Sheriff’s Office more transparent through semiannual briefings, address traffic with technology like license plate readers and place an increased importance on school safety.

He also vowed to invest in officer well-being, inclusion, training and development.

Other Republican candidates for Sheriff include:

— Lawyer Iggy Alvarez, who spent 25 years with MDPD, retiring in 2017 as a major of its Special Victims Unit. Since filing in October, he has raised $263,000.

— Ernie Rodriguez, an MDPD lieutenant working in the county’s Agricultural and Environmental Crimes Unit. Since filing in January, he has collected $239,000.

— John Rivera, who retired from MDPD as a sergeant after 43 years and was the long-serving former President of the police benevolent associations of Florida and Miami-Dade. Since filing in October, he’s raised $145,000.

— Miami Police officer Ruamen DelaRua, who worked for nearly 27 years at the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, which he left in 2013 as a District Commander. DelaRua filed to run in November 2022, making him the first candidate in the race. Since then, he has brought in about $39,000.

— Alex Fornet, a former MDPD reserve officer who now owns and operates a credit repair business. He’s raised $18,000 since filing in September.

— Private investigator Jeffrey Giordano, a 27-year veteran of the Miami Police Department, where he was a hostage negotiator, undercover officer, detective and public information officer. Since filing in February, he has raised $18,000.

A Republican-focused poll in June by Rodriguez’s campaign found 67% of Primary voters were undecided on whom they’d support at the ballot box. Sanchez led all candidates with 10% support, followed by Martinez.

Polling by Reyes’ campaign the month before found Sanchez and Knapp were the most popular GOP candidates, followed by Cordero-Stutz.