Ousted Surfside leader files to run for Miami-Dade mayor
Weeks after losing his reelection bid for Surfside mayor, Shlomo Danzinger is running to oust Daniella Levine Cava as mayor of MiamiDade County.
A Republican, Danzinger endorsed Levine Cava, a Democrat, while he was Surfside’s mayor, a post that he won in 2022 in an upset over the incumbent, Charles Burkett. Last month, Burkett beat Danzinger.
Danzinger joins a Republican-heavy field of challengers, including Manny Cid, the mayor of Miami Lakes, and Alexander Otaola, the conservative host of the Spanish-language YouTube show “Hola Otaola.” All candidates for mayor face each other in the nonpartisan Aug. 20 county election followed by a November runoff between the top two finishers if nobody gets more than 50% of the vote.
Danzinger, 44, was not available for comments on Tuesday.
Surfside is one of Miami-Dade’s smallest municipalities, with a population of about 5,500 people. Burkett took 52% of the vote against Danzinger’s 48% in the town’s March 19 election, and the Levine
Cava campaign pointed to those results in minimizing the former mayor’s entry into the 2024 race.
“The voters of Surfside spoke clearly earlier this year and there is no doubt Miami-Dade voters will join them in sending the same message regarding our new opponent,” the campaign said.
The mayoral election now includes two candidates whose Jewish faith brought them electoral firsts: Levine Cava as the county’s first Jewish mayor, and Danzinger as Surfside’s first Orthodox Jewish mayor.
Levine Cava won Surfside’s
lone voting precinct by 15 points in the 2020 election then rose to national prominence less than a year later there as the public face of Miami-Dade’s response to the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo complex in Surfside. Burkett was Surfside’s mayor at the time, and the Republican said Tuesday he has already endorsed Levine Cava.
Danzinger took office in 2022. He led Surfside through the collapse aftermath, including approving development plans at the condo site and pushing for stricter rules on building safety.
A year before the Florida Legislature passed a crackdown on homeless people spending the night on public property, Danzinger championed a local-law change making it harder for people to bathe in showers at town beaches or sleep outside in Surfside.
He also pledged to reduce the bickering that often defined Surfside council meetings while Burkett was mayor. Friction continued, with Danzinger declining to support flying a gayrights Pride flag at the town’s community center and asking whether anyone knew “how to speak Spanish” to communicate with a bilingual town commissioner.
With Danzinger’s filing, the mayoral race has seven candidates, including Carlos Garín, a former telenovela actor who ran for county commission in 2018; Miguel “el Skipper” Quintero, who runs a trapeze school at his home; and Eddy Rojas, owner of a valet-parking business.