Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announces 2024 presidential run

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (TND) — Miami Mayor Francis Suarez formally announced his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination Thursday night.

Speaking from the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Suarez sought to position himself as an inheritor of Reagan’s vision of conservativsm, and America, during the course of his remarks (he also cited the moral example of Saint John Paul II and his father Xavier, a past Miami mayor).

In Miami, we admired President Reagan for his vision of a confident and forward-looking America,” Suarez said. “He didn’t define himself by what he was against, but by what he was for. He built a winning majority around a vision of America’s future rooted in our national values and inspired by our shared heritage.

The third-term Republican mayor joins only a few competitors and colleagues in invoking Reagan – once the standard-bearer and philosophical center for the GOP – in the race, like former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott, R-N.C., who has specifically invoked the 40th president’s “shining city on a hill” rhetoric when speaking about the country.

Suarez also followed the principle of definining himself not by what he was against by largely staying away from culture war issues like critical race theory or “wokeness” – he also did not comment on former President Donald Trump’s federal charges – but by speaking to kitchen table issues like crime and economic development.

No one can pursue happiness if they live in a violent neighborhood, or on a street that isn’t secure,” he said. “Every American has a fundamental right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that right should not be limited because you may live secure in your own home,” he added, going on to claim how recent increases in budgets to (rather than defunding of) police led to the lowest murder rate per capita the city had seen in almost 60 years.

Speaking to recent events, he cited his bona fides on the federal deficit – and fight between the House and White House over budget and the debt ceiling – with Miami’s recent credit rating upgrade to AA (from AA-), which is an all-time high for the city.

He also took a moment to switch and address the crowd entirely in Spanish, offering an olive branch to the country’s considerable and growing Hispanic population from a two-party system that ends to stick entirely to English in its leadership. His comments also came just hours after Pres. Joe Biden acknowledged that 26 out of every 100 public school students in the country speak Spanish (a 2020 fact check shows the numner is actually 17% during remarks on the 11th anniversary of the DACA program at the White House.

Suarez made headlines in the immediate aftermath of his remarks by criticizing the 6-week abortion ban recently signed into law in his state by Gov. Ron DeSantis, now his rival for the White House.

“Look, I think that the country is not there yet,” he said of the six-week ban, which is before many women know they are pregnant.

He said he would back a 15-week federal abortion ban with rare exceptions, in line with a plan proposed by GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina last year that more moderate Republicans tried to distance themselves from before the midterm elections.

We are in a situation where 70% of the country agrees with a limitation of 15 weeks where there is an exception for the life of the mother and an exception for rape and incest, and I think that is a position that will save a tremendous amount of babies,” Suarez said. “If there was that kind of federal law, that’s one that I would support as president.

Suarez’s final opening message to voters was that needed someone like him, a servant – not a “shouter” or a “fighter” or someone who will lecture them – and a mayor, with that combination of tight management skill and retail politics, in the White House.

“We must not shy away from the challenges that will allow us to continue to deliver generational prosperity,” Suarez said. “To meet this challenge, we need a strong leader who shares America’s values, who understands that unity is more powerful than division.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report