It’s a Saturday night in late September, less than two months from Election Day, and the second floor of the Miami Beach Convention Center is a bustling and festive soiree, featuring the movers and shakers of the local Democratic party.
A woman weaves through the crowd, wearing earrings that spell “VOTE.” The electropop song “Sexy and I Know it” by LMFAO plays loudly over the venue’s speakers. Flyers lined up along the bar tops show the slate of Democrats running for local office.
This is the Blue Gala, where Democratic candidates, activists and pundits mingle and cheer each other on, as they cross fingers for an electoral blue wave in Florida.
Heads turn as a political power duo enters the cocktail hour: Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who just won reelection in a landslide primary victory, and James Reyes, the Democrat hopeful for Miami-Dade Sheriff.
Standing alongside them: campaign consultant Christian Ulvert, the go-to power broker for most Democrats wanting to seek public office in South Florida.
He's taking a victory lap for his role in Levine Cava's lopsided win against five challengers in August and hoping to repeat that success with his other client, Reyes.
The crowd recognizes Ulvert in his own right. He holds no public office, and yet he’s one of the most powerful people in the room.
Ulvert, and by extension, his company, Edge Communications, is a household name for those plugged into South Florida politics. He counts among his stable of clients such heavy hitters as Levine Cava and Reyes, as well as former Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber and Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins. In 2020, Ulvert even worked as a consultant on Joe Biden’s successful presidential campaign.
In the past decade, Ulvert and Edge have become a major force in the Democratic campaign scene, taking in millions of dollars in campaign expenditures from progressive candidates.
His meteoric rise from humble beginnings to political power broker has made Ulvert the top consultant for candidates who hope to make it far in the Democratic Party in Miami-Dade County — more so than the party machinery itself.
With the sheer number of clients and causes Ulvert is involved with, he hasn’t been immune to stepping on his share of political minefields. Among them has been his controversial public relations work with the nation of Qatar; his representation of candidates who have come under criminal investigation; and his work advising elected politicians in some of the county’s highest offices.
It’s been a bright spotlight on a consultant who prefers to work in the background.
Origin in politics
A scarcely marked gray building in Flagami is the headquarters of Edge Communications, the progressive political consulting firm Ulvert founded in 2008.
Inside, the walls are adorned with testaments to the proprietor’s impact in local politics — framed magazine covers with headlines like: “The Power Broker” and “The 100 Most Influential People in Florida Politics.”
He sits at his desk for an interview with WLRN about his Miami roots and political consulting — a rare occurrence as he makes very clear at the start of the exchange. He prefers to put his clients in front of the microphone and hang back in the wings. This time, however, he makes an exception. He had a recent positive profile in The Egret, a magazine from the Chamber of Commerce of Miami Shores Village, so he felt open to being interviewed.
Raised by a single mother in a conservative Nicaraguan household in Miami-Dade County, Ulvert attributes his drive towards politics to his upbringing. His family’s flight from an authoritarian leftist regime in Nicaragua gave him an anti-communist bent and a penchant for fighting for causes.
He attended MAST Academy on Key Biscayne, and became student body president for Miami-Dade County Public Schools as a senior in 1999. He rallied students in a campaign against mandated school uniforms, and says he learned about the influence of business interests in politics like uniform supply companies who weighed into the debate.
“It was very inviting because it showed how one person could make a difference. We organized our peers and we were students challenging the school board or the superintendent,” Ulvert told WLRN. “I learned from a young age the power of organizing and understanding that you have to have a message.”
MAST Academy nominated Ulvert for the prestigious Miami Herald/el Nuevo Silver Knight Awards for community service. The newspaper has honored high school students in Miami-Dade and Broward counties since 1959.
He leveraged his service hours after high school to qualify for an $8,000 scholarship to Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he first pursued an undergraduate degree in criminology.
Like many young people, Ulvert said he found himself and his identity when he left home for college.
“I left Miami a straight Republican and I came back a gay Democrat,” he said.
Ulvert and his husband, Carlos Andrade, have been married for 11 years.
It was during his time in Tallahassee when Ulvert would meet the person who would set him on the political path he walks today.
“Dan Gelber is the one person that I can say changed the trajectory of my life,” Ulvert said.
Gelber, who served as mayor of Miami Beach from 2017 to 2023, was a Democrat member of the Florida House of Representatives when a young Ulvert came to him as an intern. The two got on swimmingly, and Ulvert soon became a graduate fellow in Gelber’s office when the latter became House minority leader.
Gelber describes young Ulvert as driven, with a thoughtfulness that suited him to local politics.
“He always had good instincts and spectacular judgment. I thought he was, importantly, a really principled person,” Gelber told WLRN.
It’s Gelber’s influence to which the consultant attributes his success and direction in the political world.
To this day, a plaque from his former boss sits on Ulvert’s desk with a quote that reads, in part, from singer Janis Joplin: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose… now read the bill in full! Thank you for your trust, Dan Gelber. Democratic Leader 2006-08.”
Ulvert would go on to work with Gelber as a client after founding Edge Communications in 2008. From there, the one-time intern would rise to political prominence in Miami, where his growth in cachet came with a major growth in revenue.
Biggest firm in town
The 2020 election season marked the biggest uptick in high-profile victories for Ulvert’s clients and, in turn, an uptick in business for Edge Communications.
Levine Cava successfully campaigned to win a historic victory as Miami-Dade County’s first female mayor. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins retained her seat in a largely Hispanic district against opponent Renier Diaz de la Portilla, whose family has long held power in South Florida Politics. The Biden campaign also took on Ulvert as a local consultant to win over Hispanics during the tight race against President Donald Trump.
Since 2019, candidates in South Florida have spent more than $10 million with Edge Communications for campaign consulting, communications and ad purchases, according to campaign finance records reviewed by WLRN.
Some of the biggest payouts have come from Levine Cava, who has spent close to $2 million in campaign funds with Edge Communications since 2019 when she first launched her campaign for mayor. That amount is almost matched by the Miami-Dade County Democratic Executive Committee, which spent $1.8 million directly with Ulvert’s firm until 2022.
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These millions of dollars aren't all going directly into Ulvert’s pocket. Most is used to buy ad placements, flyers and other campaign material.
Ulvert's commission from those expenditures "could be 2%, 5%, 8%, it really varies,” he said.
No other campaign consulting firm in Miami-Dade County comes close to the amount of market share Edge has had in the last five years.
Dark Horse Strategies, a local company representing Levine Cava’s most recent front running political opponent, Manny Cid, got just a fraction of the spending Edge received in Miami-Dade County. Dark Horse pulled in about $300,000 from county candidates so far this year, compared to the $2.4 million in county campaign dollars Edge Communications brought in in 2024 alone.
The Biden campaign spent about $1.2 million with Ulvert’s firm in 2020.
Ulvert attributes his firm’s success not to a sudden bonanza in 2020, but a decade of incremental success and a deep familiarity with the market he operates in.
“We may be the only Democratic, Hispanic, bilingual media firm in South Florida that represents the scale of clients I do. So I'm a go-to, and I have a working knowledge, not only of the market, but I have the relationships,” he said.
Some who have been involved with the local Democratic Party believe Ulvert has too much power as the biggest firm in town. Few, however, were willing to go on record with WLRN given Ulvert’s influence in all things South Florida politics.
Thomas Kennedy, a former elected member of the Democratic National Committee and a longtime Democratic activist in South Florida, told WLRN that Ulvert’s firm needs more competition.
“His monopolizing has created a bit of a toxic environment,” said Kennedy.
Still, said Kennedy, said any candidate in Miami-Dade has to get in good with Ulvert if they expect to have a good chance of winning.
“There are people who don’t hire him that still get elected, but it sure helps. He has a lot of PACs to move money around, he knows a lot of the big lobbyists and donors and he has the infrastructure, so a lot of candidates gravitate towards him,” Kennedy explains.
Outside his vast network of connections, Ulvert’s strength has been his ability to fundraise. His stable of PACs are able to move a vast number of dollars to local races, making him an integral source of campaign funding.
Ulvert and Maria Kuhn, Edge Communications’ vice president of finance, have opened about a dozen political fundraising committees over the years to contribute to local races in Miami Beach and countywide. Committees with names like Defend Democracy, Residents First Leadership and Our Voice, Our Future.
The largest committee is Our Democracy, an Ulvert-controlled political entity that received close to $3.5 million in contributions in Miami-Dade County in 2024 alone.
Newer politicians who have worked with Ulvert recently say his know-how and character make him a good choice for a consultant at any level.
Florida House Rep. Ashley Gantt, who ran for office for the first time in 2022 for House District 109, hired Ulvert as a consultant after she was introduced to him by a friend. She says he laid out a plan for her as a first time candidate, and helped assuage her worries about the election.
"He’s brilliant at what he does and I see his obvious passion. As a Democrat in Miami and in this country, he has put in the years of work. He's been good to me as a consultant and as a person," Gantt told WLRN. She won the House seat in 2022 and was reelected in this year's primary.
But Ulvert has other clients outside of South Florida — and even outside the U.S. — that have rankled critics who are wary of his influence on local elected officials.
Qatar
In 2021, Ulvert registered with the federal government as a foreign agent for the Embassy of Qatar through the lobbying firm Rubin Turnbull & Associates, Inc. Ulvert works as a subcontractor for the firm, and does communications consulting for Qatar’s embassy.
“If they ask me to write a press release, I do it. If they ask me to write a statement, I do it,” he explained.
Ulvert has taken numerous trips to Qatar, some by himself and some with clients — inviting the ire of some political commentators who take issue with the country's human rights record.
Mayor Levine Cava was treated to a free trip to Qatar in 2022, along with Ulvert. The Qatari government paid for Levine Cava and Ulvert to visit, with the stated purpose to discuss logistics for hosting the FIFA World Cup. Qatar was hosting the World Cup that year, and Miami will host several matches in 2026.
Cava’s office told the Miami Herald at the time she visited the country to meet with government and business officials to talk about potential partnerships and share ideas about resiliency.
The Miami Herald Editorial Board called the trip an example of poor judgment on Levine Cava’s part, especially because her advisor, Ulvert, is a foreign agent for Qatar, a nation facing protests for its record of human rights infractions.
Billy Corben, a local documentarian and online political firebrand, took to X (formerly Twitter) to lambast the mayor and Ulvert about the visit.
“And Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava should either fire her political consultant and campaign manager Christian Ulvert — a registered foreign agent for state-sponsors of anti-Semitic terrorism — or demand he no longer work for Qatar and donate the blood money he’s been paid,” Corben wrote last October.
Amnesty International, a nongovernmental organization that tracks global human rights violations, claims that the government of Qatar is guilty of stamping out freedom of expression and incarcerating people for identifying as LGTBQ+.
Qatar pays Ulvert $17,500 monthly for “communications consulting,” according to online disclosure forms Ulvert must file with the federal government.
From December 2021 to April 2024, Ulvert made $494,000 from his work for Qatar.
He says officials from Qatar know he is married to a man.
“I've had open conversations with them. I would love to see in the foreseeable future their country evolve on the issue — the same way our country has evolved on the issue,” he said.
His job as a consultant for Qatar through Turnbull and Associates is one of several gigs Ulvert has outside of campaign work. He also started a company called CU Strategies this year with his husband, Carlos Andrade.
Influence
Ulvert’s influence on local politics has been called into question for reasons beyond his international jet setting.
This past May, Ulvert and Levine Cava reportedly dissuaded county staffer Jennylee Molina from challenging Republican State Rep. Vicki Lopez for House District 113, according to a report from the watchdog news outlet The Florida Bulldog.
The Bulldog reported that Ulvert advised Levine Cava to have Molina drop out of the race because Lopez is one of the mayor’s few GOP allies in Tallahassee. Molina dropped out of the race just hours after filing to run against Lopez. Molina currently works for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.
Last week, the Miami Herald Editorial Board rescinded its endorsement of Lopez following a story by The Tributary, a nonprofit investigative newsroom based in Jacksonville, which reported the lawmaker had pushed for passage of a bill that financially benefited her family.
Ulvert also worked as a consultant for former Miami City Commissioner Sabina Covo.
As of February, Covo has been under investigation by the Broward State Attorney’s Office for alleged bribery, a probe initiated by order from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office.
Covo allegedly offered city positions in exchange for endorsements from her political opponents while she ran for reelection. This could be deemed a “quid pro quo” arrangement, though no new details on the investigation have been released. The Broward State Attorney's Office confirmed to WLRN that the investigation is still ongoing.
Ulvert told WLRN the allegations are baseless, and that he hasn’t spoken to Covo since the beginning of the year.
For Ulvert, the focus now is on getting through Tuesday’s election. If Reyes wins the Sheriff’s race, it could boost his influence even more as two of his clients would hold the most powerful offices in Miami-Dade County government.
Back at the Blue Gala in Miami Beach, Ulvert's goal was to make the rounds ushering Reyes around the venue, introducing the candidate to donors, lobbyists and other powerful people around the party. Even as he shook hands with every other person in the room, he made sure to watch as Reyes sat down for a podcast being recorded live at the gala, and kept himself out of the spotlight.
