Big Money, Democratic Politics, And Big Real Estate In Miami-Dade
On Saturday, January 4, 2025, less than two weeks after residents at Li’l Abner Mobile Home in Sweetwater, Miami-Dade whom your correspondent reported on in December filed a lawsuit against developer Raul F. Rodriguez to avoid eviction, The Miami Herald released a list which cast the eviction fight in a broader light. It showed the top sixteen donors to Democratic Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the majority-Democratic Miami-Dade County commissioners in 2024—really, a map linking real estate interests like Rodriguez’s to Democratic political dominance in Miami-Dade, whose citizens vote Republican.
Of the top sixteen donors, at least five are heavily invested in changing the face of the county through luxury buildings or “affordable housing,” and another has been a major real estate player for many years. Two more are Florida utility companies which benefit directly from this housing boom, since every new apartment needs power. Another, a Canadian entertainment conglomerate, will also benefit, since it’s the backer of a proposed mega-mall in Hialeah complete with an indoor water park and ice rink. Three other of the top slots are held via PACs by Daniella Levine Cava’s chief political advisor who counts three Miami-Dade Democratic commissioners as clients and whose other income comes from lobbying on behalf of developers.
Thirteen out of 16 donors, then, are playing the real estate game that currently promotes “densification” and mostly benefits upper-income new arrivals. They are the people running the financial interests of the Democrats who are running the County. What’s getting lost in this equation is the interest of the electorate: the working and middle class voters who this year made their conservative preferences decisively clear.
Looking closer at four Democratic donors—Ken Griffin, Michael Swerdlow, Christian Ulvert, and Atlantic Pacific—gives a sense of the range of their real estate moves, how they intersect with Miami-Dade Democratic politics, and their likely effects on Miami-Dade residents.
Ken Griffin Donates to Levine Cava and Turns Brickell into a Mini-Manhattan
The largest donor is Ken Griffin, who recently moved his business interests from Chicago to Miami-Dade and donated $500,000 to Daniella Levine Cava’s campaign. Griffin is breaking ground on a $650 million office tower in Brickell, the city’s financial district. According to The Miami Herald, this 54-floor building will include “a 212 room hotel perched above the office floors, a 5,000-square-foot health spa and fitness club” along with “restaurants and stores” which will spill out onto the street. Landscaping is being designed by the same firm that designed Manhattan’s linear park the High Line: the first step in the remaking of Manhattan into a destination for wealthy tourists which started pushing working and middle class residents with more traditional values out of Manhattan.
Read more at The Miami Independent.