Tech investors pump another $350,000 into Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s reelection bid
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s political committee raised another $350,000 from tech investors last month as his political ambitions continue to benefit from a socialmedia crusade to lure Silicon Valley to South Florida.
State records released Wednesday show Suarez’s committee, Miami For Everyone, raised
$525,000 in February — a massive haul that boosts the first-term mayor’s war chest above $1 million as he heads into the Nov. 2 election.
Most of the dollars came from bigwigs affiliated with Google, Shutterstock and Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency Suarez frequently promotes.
Jonathan Oringer, the founder and chairman of Shutterstock, made the largest contribution with a $100,000 check. Oringer recently moved to a North Bay Road mansion in Miami Beach, and he told the Miami Herald he plans to invest in local startups through his new venture, Pareto Holdings.
Former Google CEO
Eric Schmidt and Kal Vepuri, an angel investor and CEO of an at-home medication manager technology called Hero, each gave $50,000.
Keith Rabois, an early PayPal investor and partner at the Founders Fund, also contributed $50,000. Suarez recently interviewed Rabois at City Hall as part of a web series called “Cafecito Talks.”
Twin brothers and Bitcoin investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss gave $50,000 each. The brothers are known for suing rival and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
They accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for the social network while they were all at Harvard, a battle dramatized in the 2010 film “The Social
Network.”
Suarez has trumpeted Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a viable investment, and he’s pushing crypto-friendly policy at City Hall. At the mayor’s urging, the city is studying the possibility of doing some business in Bitcoin.
The haul reflects the second straight month in which Suarez has raised six figures from tech entrepreneurs. In January, he raised more than $400,000, including a quarter-million check from billionaire and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya.
“I’m grateful for the generous support my political committee is receiving from those who share my vision of growth, prosperity and greater quality of life for the residents of Miami,” Suarez wrote Wednesday in a text message. “While we have an important election this year, my focus is on leading the city as we strive to recover from the pandemic
and attract better jobs and opportunities for our residents.”
Suarez’s fundraising began to take flight in late December, around the time his effort to brand Miami as a haven for tech entrepreneurs caught fire. The 43-year-old real estate attorney is a prolific fundraiser, but an injection of new tech donors has helped add a new facet to the mayor’s typically robust donor base of real estate interests, lawyers, lobbyists and other local businesses.
The remaining
$150,000 Suarez raised in February came from donors in the healthcare and real estate industries. Ten companies affiliated with businessman Nadim Ashi, owner of development and hospitality firm Fort Partners, gave Suarez a total of $50,000. An affiliate of developer Melo Group contributed $50,000. Illinois-based personal protective equipment manufacturer GRJ Health gave $50,000.
An ambulance service, MCT Express, gave $15,000. The smallest donation in February was $10,000 and came from a call center outsourcing company run by Miami Beach commissioner Ricky Arriola.
a city accustomed to hype cycles, skepticism about the latest Miami migration wave abounds.
But careful observers say many transplants who in years past may have tossed aside their Florida oranges — or Miami mangoes — to return to the Big Apple at the first sign of trouble are letting the tropical taste permanently linger this time around.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg News joined the Miami-as-mirage misanthropy with an article titled “Wall Street A-Listers Fled to Florida. Many Now Eye a Return.”
Wrote Bloomberg, “As vaccinations stir fresh hope that the pandemic’s end is near, ebullient talk of South Florida drawing Wall Streeters en masse is already beginning to fizzle.”
Almost any way you slice it, whatever sizzle may be fizzling is minuscule.
Bloomberg itself cites USPS data showing 2,246 people filed a permanent address change from Manhattan to Miami-Dade — and another 1,741 to Palm Beach County — accounting for 9% of the out-of-state moves from the borough. That’s up from 6% in 2019, Bloomberg says.
That New York-to-Miami migration ranked as the fifth-most-popular moving “pair” between metro areas in 2020, according to StreetLight Data, a transIn portation solutions group that used cellphone data to track migration.
New York is without question seeing a new bump in activity amid plummeting prices and bargain hunters. Miami-to-New York was the seventh-most-popular moving pair in the StreetLight study.
But Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel real estate appraisers and consultants, said that the luxury-price range of South Florida real estate sales indicates that new-to-market activity is not slowing. Last month, Miller Samuel tracked 301 single-family home purchases and 291 condo purchases above $1 million in Miami-Dade, compared with 197 and 185 in January, respectively.
“That’s the smoking gun,” he said. “You’re seeing far more year-on-year growth as you skew higher in price, and that suggests demand is still coming from higher-cost markets. It’s showing that there really is in-bound migration.”
At least one local banker says talk of slowing migration is misplaced. Eddy Arriola, chairman and CEO of Apollo Bank, estimates that over the past six months or so, 20% of his bank’s new clients or prospects have come from the New York area.
“Which is a huge number, because Miami is booming on its own, and there are a bunch of other cities, like San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and Rome that are showing interest,” he said. “If they’re talking to us, that means they want a relationship where they can bounce off ideas off someone and meet other people. If they’re just banking with Chase, they can just stay with them down here.”
To be sure, not all will find what they are looking for in the Magic City. But they are likely to constitute a smaller group than they might have in years past, said Mitch Ackles, global president of the New Yorkbased Hedge Fund Association, an International, nonprofit, industry trade group.
“Florida is not a fit for everyone,” he said. “But I do expect that many firms that relocated here will decide to stay post-pandemic. Florida will continue to grow and thrive, but I want to see New York and other financial centers do the same.”