Republican Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado has said he will not be voting for Donald Trump in November’s general election.
Regalado had initially endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio for President. Yet, after a crippling defeat in his own state’s primary, Rubio was forced to pull out of the GOP race in March.
Rubio has since hesitantly announced he’ll be throwing his weight behind Trump.
But speaking to the Miami Herald on Wednesday, Mayor Regalado told reporters that he had no intention of following Rubio’s example, arguing that Trump was a bully whose presidency would create “international chaos.”
“He mistreats people, speaks derisively of people,” Regalado said. “A president’s biggest asset is the bully pulpit. This guy is capable of creating national and international chaos.”
Regalado is only the latest in a string of prominent Florida Republicans to denounce the party’s presumed presidential nominee.
Last week, former state Governor Jeb Bush issued a sweeping statement on social media explaining why he would not be voting for Trump in November despite the fallen presidential hopeful having previously signed a pledge to do so.
“Donald Trump has not demonstrated that temperament or strength of character,” Bush said. “He has not displayed a respect for the Constitution. And, he is not a consistent conservative. These are all reasons why I cannot support his candidacy.”
U.S. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo have also declared they would be abstaining from November’s vote entirely.
“I will work with whomever is chosen by the American people to serve as president, because I deeply respect the American constitutional system,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. “In this election, I do not support either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.”
Mayor Regalado echoed those views on Wednesday, saying that he did not plan to vote for the Democratic nominee, either. Instead, the Republican mayor will simply leave the presidential box on his election ballot blank.
“I’m not going to vote for one or the other,” he said. “For senator, for representative, for anything else, yes.”
Although the city’s Cuban-born mayor has declared he will not be supporting Trump’s presumed opponent, research suggests Miami residents will overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton over Trump, assuming the two candidates do ultimately end up facing off against one another in November.
According to fresh figures published Monday by Bendixen & Amandi International, Clinton currently leads Trump by a whopping 27-point margin across Miami-Dade County. An estimated 23 percent of area voters say they are still undecided.
One in five Miami Republicans even said they are planning to cross party lines by voting for Clinton, while just under half of GOP voters say they will be supporting Trump. A third of Miami Republicans told researchers they are undecided.
Meanwhile, 79 percent of area Democrats surveyed said they will be voting for Clinton in November’s general election.
Among voters without any party affiliation, Trump fares slightly better but still trails Clinton by an estimated 21 percent. Clinton also leads among every age group and every gender.
That being said, Trump did outperform Clinton among Cuban-American voters. Around 41 percent said they preferred Trump, compared to 29 percent voicing support for Clinton.
Monday’s poll surveyed 600 registered voters in Miami-Dade in both English and Spanish. Researchers say the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. They also added that Spanish-dominant voters appeared to be evenly split between Clinton and Trump, while English-dominant voters said they favored Clinton.
With 29 electoral votes, Florida is widely considered one of the country’s most crucial election battlegrounds. In all of the last four presidential election cycles, the candidate chosen by Florida’s voters has always gone on to win the Oval Office.
[Photo by Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Goldman Properties]
