Miami, Florida will have a Democratic mayor for the first time in nearly three decades after Mayor-elect Eileen Higgins won her election in a landslide on Tuesday. In the most Hispanic parts of the city, Ms. Higgins overperformed Vice President Harris by as much as 40 points. 

Ms. Higgins defeated a former city manager, Emilio Gonzalez, by 19 points, 59 percent to 40 percent. She will be the first Democratic mayor since Xavier Suarez, who was elected to a second term in 1997. 

The city has swung wildly to the right in the last ten years, much like other majority-Hispanic areas of the country. In 2016, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won Miami by 40 points, though Ms. Harris carried it by less than one point in 2024. 

According to the most recent census data, Miami is the fourth-largest majority-Hispanic city in the nation, with more than 70 percent of residents being of Hispanic descent. A majority of its residents were born overseas. 

An initial vote count analysis from the data firm VoteHub shows that Ms. Higgins’ victory is, in part, a result of her strong performance in Miami’s most Hispanic neighborhoods.

In Little Havana — which has a majority Cuban-American population — Ms. Higgins saw every precinct swing more toward her party relative to 2024. Some of those precincts swung toward Democrats by as much as 24 percent. 

Some of the most dramatic swings toward Ms. Higgins’ party came from Miami’s downtown area, which is also majority-Hispanic. In one precinct, Ms. Higgins won more than 90 percent of the vote even though Ms. Harris won only 58 percent in that same area. In total, that one precinct downtown swung more than 68 points toward the Democrats. 

In another majority-Hispanic neighborhood, Wynwood, Ms. Higgins overperformed Ms. Harris by as much as 20 points, representing a 40-points swing toward Democrats. 

Ms. Higgins focused heavily on affordability and delivering better city services, though she was also not shy in speaking out against President Trump’s immigration policies — specifically the revoking of temporary protected status from Venezuelan migrants. 

“I’m very concerned with what’s happening in the city of Miami,” Ms. Higgins said during a debate last month. “First of all, they said they were gonna go after criminals, but guess what? They’re going after everybody.”

Ms. Higgins’ victory on Tuesday is in keeping with Democrats’ other overperformances this year, especially with Latino voters. In Virginia’s and New Jersey’s gubernatorial elections in November, Hispanics swung back toward Democrats by massive margins.

In the city of Perth Amboy, New Jersey — which is nearly 80 percent Hispanic — the Democratic candidate, Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, beat her Republican opponent by more than 60 points, even though Mr. Trump carried those same precincts in 2024. 

The Miami mayoral race is not the only election in which Democrats significantly overperformed on Tuesday. In two special elections for the Florida state legislature — one for the state house of representatives and one for the state senate — Democrats overperformed by 17 points and 22 points, respectively, relative to Ms. Harris’s margin.

In Georgia, a special election for a seat in the state house of representatives saw Democrats win by two points in a district Mr. Trump won by 12 points — a 14-point swing on par with Democrats’ wins throughout 2025.