A residency check on Miami’s candidates

Two dozen candidates are competing for three Miami posts this election cycle. They span professions and political lanes — and they’ve logged very different amounts of time actually living in the city and in the districts they are hoping to represent.

Miami’s election rules require mayoral hopefuls to have lived inside city limits for at least a year before the Sept. 20 qualifying deadline. Commission candidates must have lived within their district boundaries for the same 365-day stretch.

Florida Politics cross-checked candidate filings against state voter rolls and the city’s district map to confirm residency. Unless noted, candidates voted regularly over the past decade.

Mayor

Of 13 mayoral candidates, four are relative newcomers, with less than two years in Miami.

The newest entry is entrepreneur Christian Cevallos, who moved from unincorporated Kendall in September 2024, just weeks before qualifying. He previously lived in the Hammocks area, roughly 25 miles from Miami.

Attorney Kenneth “K.J.” DeSantis, who says he’s related to Gov. Ron DeSantis, moved to Miami in June 2024 after about 18 months in unincorporated Kendall. He first relocated from Kentucky to Palm Beach County in late 2021 and cast his first Florida ballot last November.

Medical legislation advocate Alyssa Crocker arrived in April 2024 after stops in Clay and St. Johns counties. She has voted only in the 2020 and 2024 General Elections.

Freight rail conductor Laura Anderson told the city she moved to Miami in February 2023, about nine months after relocating to Hialeah from Troy, New York; her voter file lists a Hialeah address into 2024. She appears not to have voted in Florida since moving.

Two others have at least three years here: Miami-Dade Cryptocurrency Task Force Chair Elijah Bowdre and real estate associate June Savage.

Nonprofit executive Michael Hepburn, a repeat Miami candidate, has alternated between living in Miami and South Miami since 2016. He most recently moved back to Miami in September 2024, less than a week before he would have been ineligible to run.

The rest are long-timers: Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, former Miami Commissioners Alex Díaz de la Portilla and Ken Russell, and former City Manager Emilio González.

Carollo and Suarez both previously served as Miami’s Mayor. Suarez is the father of current, term-limited Mayor Francis Suarez.

Carollo is running under the cloud of a $63 million lawsuit judgment from 2023, lodged by local businessmen who successfully sued him for weaponizing city resources against them, and a long trail of controversies.

Díaz de la Portilla was removed from office in 2023 after his arrest on corruption charges that were later dropped.

Hepburn and Higgins would make history if elected, as Miami’s first Black Mayor and first woman Mayor, respectively.

Russell is seeking a comeback after leaving the Commission early for an unsuccessful congressional bid. González, a veteran of local, state and federal posts, successfully sued the city this year to prevent delaying the election to 2026 — a move Carollo voted against.

City Commission, District 3

Eight candidates want to succeed Carollo in District 3, which centers on Little Havana and parts of Shenandoah.

One contender’s paperwork raises residency questions.

Restaurant manager and real estate broker Rolando Escalona says he has lived continuously in District 3 since June 2024, after residing just five months in neighboring District 4. His filings show moves between the two districts since mid-2023, after living in North Miami and unincorporated West Little River.

But Miami-Dade Property Appraiser records list him as the owner of the District 4 duplex he says he most recently left, but not of the District 3 apartment that he now says is home. The address attached to his broker’s license is still that of the District 4 property, almost 16 months after he says he moved.

He told Political Cortadito on Thursday that redistricting pushed him out of District 3, so he moved into the apartment while his wife remained at the duplex with his mother for a short span before joining him.

U.S. Navy veteran Oscar Alejandro has lived in Miami since November 2023, after moving from near Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport.

The rest — former Miami Commissioner Frank Carollo, Code Enforcement Abatement Board member Yvonne Bayona, real estate broker Brenda Betancourt, public relations professional Denise Turros, Marine Corps veteran Rob Piper and City Hall aide Fayez Tanous — reported a decade or more in Miami.

Frank Carollo, brother of Joe, would extend the family’s grip on the seat to two decades if he wins and serves four years.

Turros, a “Latinas for Trump” co-founder, also ran for Commission in 2017. She was arrested in 1994 on credit card theft charges and in 2010 for disorderly intoxication charges, both later dropped or dismissed, and has since corrected a LinkedIn entry that wrongly claimed she held a journalism degree.

Piper led a 2020 recall PAC targeting Joe Carollo.

City Commission, District 5

Miami Commissioner Christine King, on the dais since 2021, is facing two longtime Miamians.

Construction executive Marion Brown says he’s lived at the same District 5 address since 2002. State records show he didn’t vote in Florida until the August 2024 Primary and only registered the year before, ahead of an unsuccessful Miami-Dade Commission bid.

Community activist and perennial candidate Frederick Bryant has lived in District 5 since 2000 and has been registered to vote in Florida since 1976.

By comparison, King, a lawyer, is the greenhorn in this race. She moved to District 5 in August 2018 after nearly 25 years in North Miami, about 11 miles away.

Odds and ends

City races are technically nonpartisan, but party politics are frequently still a factor.

In the Mayor’s race, Republicans include Carollo, Cevallos, Crocker, Díaz de la Portilla, González and Savage. Democrats include Bowdre, Hepburn, Higgins and Russell. Anderson, DeSantis and Suarez have no party affiliation.

In District 3, the Republicans are Bayona, Betancourt, Carollo, Escalona, Tanous and Turros. Alejandro and Piper are Democrats.

In District 5, King is a Democrat, Brown a Republican and Bryant is an independent.

Miami’s General Election is Nov. 4. If no candidate tops 50% in a race, the top two advance to a Dec. 9 runoff.