In 2020, former Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner lost by 1,301 votes to school board member and lawyer Raquel Regalado for a then-open District 7 seat in the Miami-Dade County Commission.
Four years later in the Aug. 20 primary, Lerner and Regalado became the top two candidates in a field of three to enter a run-off election on Nov. 5.
As Election Day nears, both Lerner and Regalado have used the incumbent’s record to convince voters to reject the other candidate, a tactic fueled with mudslinging and personal attacks.
“The first thing that needs to get done is to build relationships throughout the district,” Lerner said in an interview with Caplin News. “The current commissioner has ignored much of the district, especially unincorporated Miami Dade. I don’t even know where she is.”
Lerner, 72, is a former member of the Florida House of Representatives whose platform is based on climate change reform, reducing public corruption and overdevelopment, and expanding transit options.
As mayor of Pinecrest, she created a climate action plan to reduce carbon emissions and introduced a free local transit service. She also chaired the National League of Cities’ Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee while in office.
Regalado, 50, is currently the District 7 county commissioner. She won 49% of the vote in the primary. Caplin News reached out to her for an interview but received no response.
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The daughter of former Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, Raquel Regalado’s campaign boasts her accomplishments in office, which include advocating for disabled children and adults, improving water quality in Biscayne Bay, creating affordable housing options in unincorporated Miami-Dade, and more.
“We’ve gotten so much done and we have so much more to do,” said Regalado in a podcast episode with the Key Biscayne Independent. “There is no [municipality] that is not supporting me in this reelection, and that is an amazing testament, especially in Key Biscayne.”
However, Lerner’s campaign has tried to frame Regalado as pro-development, anti-environment, and catering to special-interest donors who have boosted her fundraising efforts to over $2 million. According to the Miami Herald, Regalado’s cash advantage was fueled in part by donations from developers wanting favorable votes from the commission.
“It’s really obscene. I don’t know what else to call it, but an obscene amount of donations,” Lerner commented. “70% are from developers, lobbyists, land use lawyers and real estate concerns. The influence that they have had on her and her votes is very obvious.”
Regalado continues to brush off these claims, dismissing Lerner as a politician with a record of rudeness to constituents. She has also called Lerner “corrupted”, alleging that she allowed her first cousin to use Pinecrest’s facilities for an event rent-free, keeping a chunk of the proceeds.
But a turning point came when an attack ad against Regalado sparked some controversy when it tied the incumbent to a string of corruption allegations linked to officials, including Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo and suspended commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla. Regalado rejected the allegations and called Lerner’s ad anti-Hispanic by grouping politicians with the same ethnicity.
“The messaging is: Cuban-Americans are corrupt,” she said in an interview with the Miami Herald. “Therefore, Raquel Regalado is corrupt.”
Lerner denied these claims, saying critics are playing an ethnicity card that isn’t there.
“They are baseless claims. They are false claims,” Lerner said. “The reason those elected officials were mentioned is because each one of them hit the front pages of the Miami Herald, and they have made decisions that significantly impact much of District Seven.”
“She’s affiliating herself with people who are being investigated,” she continued. “That’s concerning.”
There has been no public polling on the District 7 county commissioner race.
The Miami Herald Editorial Board endorsed Regalado over Lerner, writing that Regalado has “an extensive list of accomplishments during her first term.”
District 7 covers the southern portion of the city of Miami, parts of Coral Gables and Kendall, and Key Biscayne, Pinecrest and South Miami. According to a district demographic analysis by Miami-Dade County, District 7 has over 77,000 Hispanic voters, with over 31,000 registered as Republicans.
Adriana Garcia, 43, is a Republican and a schoolteacher who early voted for Regalado at the Coral Gables Library.
“I voted for her in 2020 and in this election because she aligns more with my political views,” said Garcia.
Jorge Casas, a 44-year-old Democrat, is a project manager for construction and early voted for Lerner both in this election and in 2020.
“Raquel Regalado is a nepo baby. I don’t agree with her policies,” Casas said. “I think she’s just really pushing to defend herself all the time. A good candidate doesn’t have to sit there and defend themselves. Their actions are going to tell their people what they’re doing and what they’re not doing.”
Alain Diaz Herrera, 36, is a campaigner for “Latino Americans for Trump” at the Coral Gables Library. A Republican voter and self-employed, he also early voted for Regalado due to the effectiveness of her policies.
“One of the things that I like about her is that [she] knows what works and [her] mental idea is not really to change what is already working. I like that. I like that she respects that things are working out and she doesn’t have any intention to have a dramatic change.”
The story was originally published by Caplin News, a publication of FIU's Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media, as part of an editorial content partnership with the WLRN newsroom.
