Miami-Dade mayor race heading for November runoff

Source: Miami Herald

Miami-Dade County’s bitter, pricey mayoral race will go to a run-off vote in November, with challenger Raquel Regalado forcing incumbent Carlos Gimenez into a one-on-one contest with the two-term school board member.

“The people have spoken and they have rejected Carlos Gimenez,” Raquel Regalado told supporters in Spanish late Tuesday. “For years, many said ‘Raquelita Regalado’ could never do this. Well, here you have it.”

The race pitted the daughter of Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado against a county mayor who came to office in 2011 and has presided over Miami-Dade’s recovery from recession to the expanded revenues that came from a second housing boom.

Gimenez, 62, who at 48 percent fell shy of the 50-percent-plus-one votes he needed to win outright, addressed supporters late Tuesday and promised “a clear victory” in November. “There’s a clear difference,” Gimenez said in the ballroom of the Hilton Miami Airport Convention Center. “And a difference in vision.”

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