Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado and challenger Cindy Lerner both fell short of the 50% they needed to seal a victory on Tuesday.
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado and challenger Cindy Lerner are headed into a November runoff election again this year after neither candidate topped 50% on Tuesday for the District 7 commission seat.
Lerner, the former mayor of Pinecrest, ran against Regalado in 2020, only to lose narrowly in a runoff election. The spoiler this time: Richard Praschnik, a public schools police officer who captured 9% of the vote total on Tuesday.
Praschnik made the Regalado-Lerner 2024 rematch a three-way race. He is now out of contention, but not before denying both candidates an outright victory.
Regalado, seeking a second four-year term, fell just short in the final tally with 16,554 votes, representing 48.76% of the ballots cast. Lerner won 14,187 votes, or 41.79% of the vote total. Praschnik tallied 3,206 votes, representing 9.44% of the total.
Both leading candidates embraced the outcome as a victory late Tuesday.
“It’s nice to win. It’s nice to win by a large margin. Third party candidates are always a challenge,” Regalado told the Spotlight. “I’m looking forward to beating her in November, again. I’ve actually done that before.”
Lerner was just as upbeat, saying she would be back on the campaign trail Wednesday morning with a voice grown hoarse from campaigning.
“Right now, I am so pumped I think my voice is a little stronger. I would have loved to celebrate a victory tonight but I will have to put that off until November,” she said.
Lerner described Praschnik as an anyone-but-Regalado choice for voters.
“I will tell you he didn’t do a lot of campaigning. For all the time he was a candidate he was not very visible,” she said. “I think he represented another portion of this community that wanted to make sure she (Regalado) didn’t get reelected.”
Regalado said she would look ahead to November when the presidential election is sure to draw more voters to polls. The countywide turnout on Tuesday was 19.56%.
“Turnout was very low and that’s very challenging,” Regalado said. “November is a different game. It is an opportunity to reach more voters.”
During the campaign, Regalado portrayed herself as a plain-spoken and practical politician who had tackled tough issues and gotten things done during her first term. She told the Spotlight in July she was happy to run on her record.
Lerner took her at her word, and sought to make the campaign a referendum on Regalado’s term in office.
Lerner hammered Regalado during the campaign for accepting campaign donations from individuals and companies with business before the county commission.
“I’m running for the Commission to ensure community interests come before special interests,” Lerner said in one campaign appeal.
Regalado said her vote was not for sale. “I am a lot of things, but I am not corrupt,” she told the Spotlight during a July interview.
Regalado raised $408,000 in campaign cash (not including contributions made to a political committee). Lerner raised just over $205,000, including $70,000 in loans the candidate made to her own campaign.
Lerner also slammed Regalado for voting in 2022 to expand the county’s Urban Development Boundary to accommodate a warehouse project near Homestead Air Reserve Base.
“Raquel cast the deciding vote to build warehouses in the Everglades,” Lerner said.
Regalado said she did so only after extracting a commitment from the developer to donate two acres of environmentally sensitive land to the county for every acre of land that was developed.
Notably, Regalado won plaudits from Zoo Miami spokesman Ron Magill for her opposition to the Miami Wilds water park at Zoo Miami. A Regalado campaign appeal featured a photo of the two, and quoted Magill as saying Regalado’s “determination to protect critical habitat served as an invaluable contribution towards stopping this project.” The statement was not an official endorsement, however. Magill made clear in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that he does not endorse political candidates.
The candidates also had sharply different positions on the Coconut Grove Playhouse, with Regalado endorsing the county’s plan to resurrect the playhouse as a smaller theater and Lerner backing plans for a full restoration as a regional theater.
In other races on Tuesday, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava easily defeated six challengers, winning 58% percent of the vote to secure a second four-year term.
Miami voters overwhelmingly approved the appointment of an inspector general to serve as a government watchdog in the City of Miami. The same voters endorsed – after the fact – the installation of gym equipment in Maurice Ferre Park in downtown Miami, notching a win for Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo, who had installed the equipment over the objections of neighborhood residents. The issue became a point of contention between Carollo and District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, who sided with downtown residents on the issue.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that Ron Magill of Zoo Miami had endorsed Commissioner Raquel Regalado. Magill has said that, as a personal policy, he does not officially endorse any politician in an election. The story has been updated to reflect that fact.
