Miami After being disqualified from the first Republican primary discussion last week in Milwaukee, Milwaukee Mayor Francis Suarez decided to abandon his longshot presidential campaign on Tuesday. He is the first Republican contender to withdraw from the contest.
Suarez posted a lengthy statement on his X account in which he declared that running for President of the United States has been one of his greatest honors. “While I have chosen to put my presidential campaign on hold, my commitment to improving this country for all Americans endures.”
Suarez won re-election as a Republican in one of Florida’s bluest communities by basing his campaign on his track record of success in Miami. But his campaign struggled to acquire traction as he only made a small number of trips to campaign in early states—three to Iowa and two to New Hampshire since declaring his candidacy in June.
The mayor sharpened his pitch while campaigning in early voting states, raging against the “defund the police” movement and highlighting his ancestors’ migration from Cuba to the United States.
Suarez told reporters ahead of the discussion that he would withdraw if he didn’t get on stage.
At a press conference at the Iowa State Fair, he said, “I don’t think candidates ought to simply sort of linger around if they don’t have a credible path. If you can’t meet the minimum thresholds, you shouldn’t be trying to take the time and volume away from people that do.”
Early in August, Suarez’s campaign revealed that it had reached one of the three thresholds required for candidates to receive a podium on the Milwaukee stage: the 40,000 unique donor mark.
The mayor of Miami likewise thought he met the RNC’s polling criterion because he assumed that three polls in which he received the required 1% of the vote would be taken into account and that he would be qualified to debate. Before learning that one of those surveys wasn’t taken into account by the RNC, Suarez prematurely celebrated getting on stage by posting a video that has since been taken down.
From the beginning, polling was a problem for the Suarez campaign. The Miami mayor struggled to gain support as he faced off against two more well-known Florida candidates after announcing his campaign at the start of the summer.
“The candidates I’m up against right now have been well-known characters in the country for a very long time. I’ve become a household name for 60 days now,” Suarez declared on August 11. There are several polls that I haven’t participated in.
Suarez, the sole Latino candidate in the Republican primary, has solicited money in a number of ways since beginning his campaign in June. He offered one lucky donor ticket to soccer superstar Lionel Messi’s debut with MLS’s Inter Miami last month, and he has also at times used the mobile payment app Venmo.
On the campaign road, Suarez emphasized how important it was for his improbable candidacy to participate in the discussion.
“Our next goal has been to get to the debate stage, which I believe we will make, and that’ll be my first opportunity to truly introduce myself to the country,” Suarez said during a Meet the Press NOW interview with host Chuck Todd.
Suarez’s campaign was dogged by controversy from the outset as the Miami Herald revealed he had doubled his net worth to $3.4 million while serving as mayor, prompting detractors to wonder if he was leveraging his position for personal advantage. In a July interview with NBC News, Suarez was unrepentant.
Suarez declared, “I’ve done well, and I won’t apologize for doing well.”
Suarez, who receives a salary of $130,000 as mayor, also earned money as an attorney and a business consultant.