Two familiar faces face off with jingles, insults in nasty Hialeah mayoral race

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Fight nearly breaks out at early voting, caught on video

There are actually five candidates in the Hialeah mayoral race that ends Tuesday, but three of them don’t really count. This election has become a head to head war between former Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban “Stevie” Bovo and former Hialeah Councilwoman Isis Garcia-Martinez.

They’re sucking all the air out of the voting booth.

Bovo and Garcia-Martinez are the frontrunners for sure. They are the two best funded candidates, with $521,176 and $338,030 raised, respectively, as of Thursday. They are the only candidates to debate on Telemundo 51, where they shared their vision between jabs at each other for almost an hour. Garcia-Martinez was far more flustered than Bovo, who served as a state rep for three years before he took advantage of the recall of his onetime mentor, former county Commissioner Natasha Seijas-Milian.

This would be a return for him to the city where he started as a councilman in 1998. For Garcia-Martinez, who was council president from 2011 until termed out two years ago, it is also a homecoming.

Read related: After losing the county mayoral race, Steve Bovo se tira for mayor en Hialeah

For both, it’s a big deal. With high stakes.

It is the first new mayor in a decade, since Julio Robaina left the city in Hernandez’s hands to run for county mayor in the recall election of 2011 (he lost). Whoever is elected will represent the second largest city in Miami-Dade — the sixth largest city in the state — in Tallahassee and D.C. and acts as the city manager, responsible for proposing a budget, hiring and firing department directors, overseeing the city’s day-to-day operations and signing or vetoing legislation. Pay is $190,000 a year.

For Bovo, who announced a Donald Trump endorsement earlier this month, it’s sort of a consolation prize after losing the county mayoral race to Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava last November 46 to 54%. He couldn’t even break 70% in Hialeah against a progressive Democrat he had cast as a communist. And Oh Mighty Isis, a former council president, is taking every opportunity to remind voters, with her “Hialeah First” slogan, a dig at the fact that this is Bovo’s second job choice.

In truth, a couple of people close to Stevie have said he’s already looking at running for county mayor again in 2024, happy about what many have characterized as La Acladesa‘s missteps (more on that later).

“Don’t be caught like a dummy,” says a radio jingle for Garcia-Martinez, but it sounds so much better in Spanish because bobo rhymes with Bovo.

“Que no te cojan de Bobo, escuchame Hialeah, whatever whatever whatever, vota por Isis Garcia.”

No, it’s not Albita, but it’s very catchy.

Actually, these two are pretty much cut from the same cloth. They have almost identical views on practically everything and draw from the same voter base. Both are longtime Republicans. Both have been involved in Hialeah politics for more than a decade and are household names in the 33016.

And neither is ideal.

Bovo worships Trump and has no qualms cutting speakers off when he was commission chairman. He ran an absentee ballot operation out of his taxpayer paid district office and is in desperate need of a real job. His son, Councilman Oscar de la Rosa, has said he will resign if Bovo wins.

Thanks, dad.

Read related: Commissioner Bovo’s office was boletero central

Isis has her own company but she has always been too friendly with and tolerant of current Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez, a known tyrant who is termed out. How much influence would he have over her in a new administration? Hernandez has, so far, stayed out of the race.

Bovo and Garcia-Martinez have been at each others’ throats, however, with accusations that he used his political palanca to get his in-laws to jump the line for subsidized housing and accusations that she is not fiscally responsible. The battle has made for some fun electioneering. It’s one of the things to love about Hialeah elections — like jingles and the early voting tailgate party at JFK library.

This is where a colorful exchange of insults between Bovo and long-shot candidate Fernando Godo, or one of his campaign workers, occurred over the weekend.

“Traidor,” the unidentified man calls Bovo. “Sapingo,” the commissioner shot back, using a Cuban slang word for jackass, according to Google. But it’s much worse than jackass. Trust Ladra on this one.

And it only got worse from there. It seemed like the two men were going to end up in a fistfight. People actually intervened to break things up. No kidding. Then Bovo’s people kept yelling at the others, almost daring them to fight. It looked like Hialeah Police may have gotten involved.

Sasha Tirador, the consultant for Garcia-Martinez, got it on cellphone video and is already using it in texts and social media against both men. It does raise concerns about the kind of mayor Bovo would be — campaign gold two days before the end of round one.

Because there will likely be more fireworks after Tuesday as these two are almost certainly going into a runoff thanks to the other three candidates, including Godo, perennial candidate Juan Santana and former Mayor Julio Martinez, who was elbow deep in the Trump campaign and has questioned if the Bovo endorsement is real.

So this war doesn’t really end Tuesday.

  Esteban Bovo, Isis Garcia-Martinez