Christian Ulvert, EDGE Communications nab national award for Eileen Higgins’ Miami Mayor campaign

South Florida political consultant Christian Ulvert and his firm, EDGE Communications, just scored a national award for their work on Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins’ historic campaign last year.

At the American Association of Political Consultants’ (AAPC) 2026 Pollie Awards in Fernandina Beach this week, Ulvert and his team at EDGE won the “Down-Ballot Campaign of the Year” award.

The honor recognizes Ulvert and EDGE’s strategic work helping Higgins outpace 12 opponents and ultimately secure a landslide runoff win in December.

Higgins is Miami’s first woman Mayor, the first Democrat to hold the office in nearly 30 years and the city’s first non-Hispanic Mayor in decades.

Ulvert and EDGE delivered similarly historic results in 2020 while working on the campaign of Daniella Levine Cava, Miami-Dade County’s current and only woman Mayor. Also last year, Ulvert’s team assisted Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez in scoring a record-setting re-election victory.

“Winning this award is an incredible honor and a reflection of a campaign that never lost sight of the residents it was fighting for,” Ulvert said in a statement.

“Mayor Eileen Higgins built a broad, diverse coalition focused on delivering results for Miami residents — restoring trust, solving problems, and moving the city forward. We’re proud to have helped tell that story in a way that broke through and made a difference.”

Ulvert, through EDGE, built and executed a full-spectrum campaign that blended media, messaging and field operations into a unified push to reach voters citywide, leaning heavily on an aggressive ground game, disciplined messaging and a coordinated mix of paid, earned and digital outreach.

The approach — along with an emphasis on kitchen-table issues like affordability, public safety and government accountability — proved effective across linguistic and demographic lines, with the campaign gaining traction among both English- and Spanish-speaking voters.

Higgins’ campaign and victory — which local, state and national politicos highlighted as a potential harbinger of since-realized Democratic upset wins across Florida — also benefited from souring disapproval of GOP-led immigration policies and a massive influx of in- and out-of-state supporters, from Levine Cava and U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Frederica Wilson to former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The annual, bipartisan Pollie Awards, judged by more than 250 industry pros, honor the most effective, creative and results-driven work in political communications and advocacy.

They are widely considered the highest honor in political communications and public affairs. Esquire has referred to them as the “Oscars of political advertising.”

AAPC President Kyle Roberts said in a statement that the awards are meant to spotlight “leaders whose strategy, innovation, and execution defined this election cycle.”

“This year’s winners are setting the pace,” he said, “for where our industry is headed.”