Miami GOP Mayor Suarez Touts Executive Experience During Concord Campaign Swing: Watch

CONCORD, NH — While a lot of the focus of the 2024 Republican presidential primary might be on the former president who lives in the Sunshine State as well as the governor of that state, who is also in the race, the mayor of one of the largest cities in Florida believes he has what it takes to unite the nation and turn its economy around.

Republican Miami Mayor Francis Suarez met with Concord City Republicans at another of the org’s Pies & Politics presidential candidate meet-and-greets at the historic Phenix Hall on North Main Street Thursday. The mayor, a lawyer and the only Hispanic in the presidential race, is the son of Cuban immigrants.

Suarez said he was running for president because he thought he had the ideas and personality to unite people and expand the Republican party by reaching out directly to young people and tens of millions of Hispanic voters. During his time as mayor, Miami had gone from one of the poorest big cities in the state to an economic powerhouse with high-tech jobs, real estate, and one of the hottest employment markets for young people. At the same time crime had expanded in many of the large cities run by Democrats, Miami during his tenure, had gone from hundreds of murders per year to about a dozen, he said. The homeless have been given services — via a 1 percent visitor’s hotel tax that raised tens of millions of dollars for services and care. This led people with substance abuse issues to turn their lives around with new jobs and access to housing.

“I’m tired of the bickering, the division, and the blaming,” he said. “It doesn’t do us any good to blame other people. We’ve got to be able to transmit that message, particularly to young voters that we lost by 26 points to the president, who was not a paragon of vigor and youth. We have to bring them a platform that will bring them prosperity in the future.”

Another initiative was ensuring every child in Miami had a bank account. The Future Bound Miami program, which he helped to create in 2019, teaches elementary school students financial literacy, helping them learn how to save — something, he said, that was also rubbing off on their parents.

The candidate touted his executive experience for most of his talk before answering questions likening his stewardship of Miami to being similar to the role of a governor. Even though around 500,000 people live in the city, the metropolitan market was larger than more than two dozen states. Suarez compared Miami being a world-class city to foreign policy experience, meeting with world leaders and different cultures.

Even though he and some of his campaign staffers missed their children’s first days of school this week, Suarez said he was enjoying his time in New Hampshire. He said the campaign and his work was about making the nation a better place for all children, especially combating the high inflation that was hurting working-class families in the United States. Suarez also praised the first-in-the-nation primary, saying residents were asking him good questions and appeared to be taking their responsibility of picking presidential candidates seriously.

Suarez hoped to make the debate criteria to be on the stage for next week’s first Republican debate. He hoped to have confirmation of debate inclusion in the coming days.

Gov. Chris Sununu was also at the event, enjoying pie and introducing the mayor.

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