Miami Mayor Francis Suarez filed paperwork to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
The 45-year-old Miami mayor is the son of Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor and is serving his second term in office.
Suarez joins a crowded Republican primary field that includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (SC), Chris Christie, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
Suarez did not support Trump in either the 2016 or 2020 elections. He reportedly wrote in Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) name in 2016 and Pence in 2020.
Before serving as Miami’s mayor, Suarez was a corporate and real estate attorney and served as a Miami commissioner.
Suarez’s entrance into the race came days after one of his major donors, Moishe Mana, said Suarez’s decision would come “within the next week.”
Suarez is a more moderate Republican than DeSantis and Trump, the two leading candidates, according to polls.
In June 2021, Suarez wore a rainbow-colored sash to celebrate “pride month,” and claimed he stood “with the LGBTQ+ community in celebrating all month long.”
During the George Floyd riots in 2020, Suarez took part in a “Compassion Caravan for George Floyd.” During the event, Suarez promised to “implement the most progressive policies,” to root out any “racist” police officers.
During the pandemic, Suarez co-wrote a Washington Post op-ed that argued the government should fine or arrest individuals who did not comply with mask mandates.
“We are at war with a silent and ruthless enemy, and mask mandates are among our best weapons to win the fight. But they have to have teeth to work,” the op-ed read.
“In short, warnings to anyone not wearing a mask need to be backed up with the threat of fines and, for chronic offenders, even arrest. There is no time to waste on half-measures,” it continued.
This year, Suarez was critical of DeSantis’ immigration laws, dismissing them as “headline grabbers.”
“I think it is already illegal to hire an undocumented worker in the United States of America. So, I’m not sure if that changes much the current law or the current state of the law,” Suarez told CBS News’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan last month.
“Am I hearing you say that some of these state laws are just theater? Because you’re saying a lot of these things don’t actually, practically, apply,” Brennan asked.
“Yeah, I think some of them are headline grabbers without a doubt,” Suarez responded.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.