Backed by real estate titans, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava cruises to reelection

Developers and commercial real estate investors are getting another four years of cozying up to Daniella Levine Cava. 

Miami-Dade County’s first female mayor cruised to a second term in office, nabbing 58 percent of a countywide vote in Tuesday’s August primary election. Although a non-partisan race, Democrat Levine Cava faced six challengers, four of whom are Republicans, including Miami Lakes Mayor Manny Cid and former Surfside mayor Shlomo Danzinger.

An all-star roster of South Florida real estate heavyweights wanted Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to serve another four years, an analysis by The Real Deal showed. 

Over a two-year period, some of South Florida’s real estate titans banded together in financially supporting Levine Cava’s reelection. Since 2022, 18 developers and commercial real estate investors poured a combined $1.2 million to Our Democracy, a political action committee backing Levine Cava that raised a total of $4.6 million for her reelection campaign. 

Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin led all donors with a $500,000 infusion to Our Democracy in June. Griffin, founder of Citadel, is developing a new supertall office tower headquarters in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. Griffin moved his firm and its affiliate Citadel Securities from Chicago to Miami and Palm Beach. In Miami, Citadel is leasing 130,000 square feet of office space at the 830 Brickell office tower being developed by Vlad Doronin’s Oko Group and Cain International, led by Jonathan Goldstein.

Between July 2022 and March of last year, OKO Group donated $50,000 to Our Democracy.

Developer and Miami Dolphins owner Steve Ross is another billionaire backer of Levine Cava. Between February 2022 and March of this year, Ross and his entity that owns Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens contributed a total of $44,000 to Our Democracy. Levine Cava’s administration negotiated new agreements with the stadium that will pay the venue millions of dollars in taxpayer monies for hosting national and international sporting events. 

The mayor also worked out a deal for a new hotel at Miami International Airport to be developed by Ross and Jeffrey Soffer’s Aventura-based Fontainebleau Development. In October of 2022, Soffer’s firm donated $10,000 to Our Democracy. 

Other heavyweights who gave five-figure donations to Our Democracy include developers Michael Swerdlow, David Martin’s Terra, Dacra’s Craig Robins and his wife Jackie Soffer, CEO of Turnberry, and the Codinas’ Codina Partners.