Donald Trump backs Miami-Dade commissioner for state Republican Party post
Miami-Dade Commissioner Kevin Cabrera is Donald Trump’s top booster on the county board, and the former president returned the favor this week. In a social-media post late
Wednesday night, Trump endorsed Cabrera in his run for vice chair of the Florida Republican Party.
“Kevin Marino Cabrera is a fearless America First Conservative who has demonstrated his dedication to the MAGA movement,” read the 10:44 p.m. post on Trump’s Truth
Social feed. “Kevin Cabrera has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
Cabrera is a former lobbyist who worked as a paid state director in Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Cabrera now holds a paid position with a Trumpaligned think tank, the America First Policy Institute.
He’s running against Michael Thompson, chair of Lee County’s GOP, for the statewide party post.
In Cabrera’s 2022 run for the Republican-heavy District 6 seat representing parts of Coral Gables, Hialeah and Miami, he secured Trump’s endorsement and made “Dade First” a campaign slogan.
Critics called him extreme for his role in a 2018 protest of a Nancy Pelosi visit to Coral Gables. The protest was organized by the local GOP and also drew members of the farright Proud Boys organization. Video showed Cabrera and others banging on the door of a Democratic campaign office and demanding Pelosi and other Democrats inside “open up.”
On the officially nonpartisan commission, Cabrera is the most active in party politics and the only one of the six Republicans to campaign for Trump while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was challenging the former president for the GOP nomination.
Trump also endorsed Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez in the 2022 race, but the former mayor of Doral — where the former president owns a golf resort — hasn’t said which candidate he is supporting in the 2024 presidential race.
In an interview, Cabrera said he spoke to Trump on Wednesday ahead of the endorsement. DeSantis has not yet announced his pick for the party post.
Trump carried Cabrera’s District 6 by 20 points in 2020, though he lost Miami-Dade to Joe Biden by seven.
“My voters overwhelmingly supported President Trump in both of his elections,” said Cabrera, who is up for reelection in 2026. “I think they align with me.”