At Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm conference at the Montage Deer Valley, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the anti-LGBTQ+ policies implemented by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are hurting the state.
“It’s impacting the state negatively,” he said.
Suarez said the Republican presidential primary will give him a chance to show his political approach.
“It is an opportunity for me to differentiate myself at some level. Look, I’ve gotten the calls from people who have decided not to come here," he said. "Obviously, the fight with Disney, a variety of different issues. I’ve talked about it publicly- we’re very different people. Miami is a different place than the rest of the state of Florida. We’re extremely welcoming to all communities.”
Suarez and DeSantis are both running to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2024. According to the data news site FiveThirtyEight, DeSantis is currently polling at 21%, whereas Suarez is at 0.1%. Former President Donald Trump is leading at roughly 50%.
Suarez has garnered national media attention for his attempt to turn Miami into the next Silicon Valley, by attracting both startups and established tech companies.
“It’s been scaled at an incredibly fast pace,” he said. “I remember we were just doing over a billion dollars in VC (venture capital) deals, now we’re doing over $5 billion of VC deals. San Francisco still holds a dominant position, but I think that can change. I do believe you should never take the perspective that you’re too big to fail.”
Suarez has previously said he takes his salary in the cryptocurrency bitcoin. He has hosted bitcoin conferences, and heavily promoted Miami Coin, which has since been dropped from exchanges due to liquidity problems.
Separately, he told the crowd Tuesday the country needs to be positioned so today’s children can succeed.
“I think as a public official… you have two roles," he said. "You have to run the corporation, and then you have to build ecosystems. Because building ecosystems is what creates prosperity for the people that you serve. As a president, and as a mayor, it’s really no different. You’re trying to create an ecosystem based on generational opportunities. And what I see and sort of my vision - is this country needs to win the generational tsunami of opportunities that are coming before it.”
Suarez added that he’s a big proponent of school choice and radical disruption in the education system.
“We created a Miami tech charter school,” he said. “Underprivileged children in our community can go and get an associate’s degree in a tech field for free in the city of Miami. We also created two scholarship funds that were private-sector funded. One of them is a for pell grant recipients - first in their family to go to college - they go to college for free. The other one is pell grant recipients who want a STEM degree, they go to college at four participating universities, for free.”
Suarez has to hit 1% in the polls or raise campaign money from at least 40,000 donors (200 donors must be in at least 20 states) to qualify for the first Republican primary debate in August.
