Poll: Eileen Higgins leads race for Miami Mayor, but not enough to avoid a runoff

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins has significantly more support than each of her 10 opponents in the Miami Mayor’s race, but not enough to avoid a runoff, new polling shows.

Her likely one-on-one foe: Emilio González, Miami’s former City Manager.

Plantation-based firm MDW Communications surveyed 511 likely Miami voters online July 27-Aug. 1. Higgins’ political committee, Ethical Leadership for Miami, commissioned the poll, which included brief bios about each candidate.

The poll found Higgins, a Democrat, holds 36% support in the technically nonpartisan Nov. 4 contest to replace term-limited Mayor Francis Suarez — 21 percentage points more than González, a Republican who currently sits in second place.

By comparison, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, both Republicans who previously served as Miami Mayor, have 11% and 7% voter support, respectively.

Former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, the second-best-performing Democrat in the race, according to MDW’s figures, has the support of about 12% of voters.

The remainder are backing one of the race’s six other candidates or are undecided.

Higgins also boasted the strongest reputation in the field, with 74% name recognition and a net +18 favorability.

González and Russell have positive favorability too, but are less known to voters. Carollo and Suarez have stronger name IDs, but are underwater favorability-wise.

“This has rapidly evolved into a two-person race, with Commissioner Higgins in a commanding position,” MDW personnel wrote.

Pollsters also queried voters about two other timely issues: the Miami Commission’s now-reversed effort to delay this year’s election to November 2026 without voter approval — a move every mayoral candidate opposed — and proposed lifetime term limits at City Hall.

Unsurprisingly, voters overwhelmingly disapproved of the election shift, which González successfully sued the city to stop last month.

Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they opposed the change, with 69% saying they “strongly oppose” elected officials moving election dates without first getting an OK from the people who put them in office.

Just 11% said they supported such an action, and 9% were neutral about it.

And it looks like stricter term limits are likely coming to the city, too.

Miami Commissioners last month approved putting a question about lifetime term limits on the November ballot. MDW found it has 71% support, with just 20% of respondents saying they plan to vote down the ballot measure

Forty-one percent of respondents to MDW’s poll were Democrats, while 35% were Republicans and 24% identified as third- or no-party voters. They were 58% Hispanic, 22% non-Hispanic White, 16% Black and Caribbean, and 4% “other.”

The gender makeup was 53% female, 47% male. Sixty-six percent were 55 or older, while 25% were 35-54 and 9% were 18-34.