Miami-Dade Democrats have endorsed George Lavín for Florida Senate District 36 in his race against Republican incumbent Ileana Garcia.

At a time when South Florida families are struggling with property insurance, housing costs, rising utility bills and the effects of flooding and sea-level rise, Lavín is running on a platform focused on affordability, local control, government accountability and keeping Tallahassee out of people's private lives.

Lavín has also been endorsed by the Miami Herald Editorial Board.

A Miami Story Rooted in Democracy

George Lavín was born in Miami and comes from a family whose experience with dictatorship and exile shaped his understanding of democracy and public service.

His family roots stretch from Spain to Cuba and Canada. His father was born in Havana and initially supported the end of the Batista dictatorship before breaking with the Cuban Revolution as it turned toward communism. His mother was raised in Havana and was studying architecture when her counterrevolutionary activities put her at risk of arrest, eventually forcing her to leave Cuba.

Neither parent returned.

Lavín says his parents, both anti-communist Cuban exiles, taught their four sons to question authority, show compassion and put principle ahead of party.

His childhood took him through Brussels and Barcelona before his family settled in Coral Gables in the early 1980s. He attended St. Hugh Catholic School and Christopher Columbus High School before earning his degree from Florida International University.

After more than a decade in New York, including living there during the September 11 attacks, Lavín returned to South Florida about 20 years ago. He has lived in Coral Gables and now West Miami and works as a legal consultant with former prosecutors, law firms and corporate legal departments.

Lavín registered as a Democrat at 18. He says his family's history taught him what can happen when political power stops answering to the people it governs, and that belief is now central to his campaign for the Florida Senate.

Why District 36 Needs a Different Voice in Tallahassee

For years, Florida's Republican leadership has devoted significant attention to divisive social and cultural issues even as residents face some of the highest property insurance costs in the country and a growing affordability crisis.

The Miami Herald described the 2022 legislative session as a Republican-led “culture wars” session, with major fights over sexual orientation, abortion, immigration, voting and how race is taught in schools.

Garcia has supported important pieces of that agenda.

She voted for HB 1557, officially called the Parental Rights in Education law and labeled “Don't Say Gay” by its opponents. During debate on the bill, Garcia drew widespread criticism after saying on the Senate floor that “gay is not a permanent thing” and “LGBT is not a permanent thing.” She later apologized to people offended by the remarks and said her comments had been taken out of context.

That same year, Garcia supported Florida's 15-week abortion ban and declined to support exceptions for rape, incest or human trafficking during the legislative debate.

Republican lawmakers continued the education fight in 2023, expanding restrictions involving sexual orientation and gender identity and adding rules governing pronoun use in schools. The Senate approved that legislation along party lines.

For Miami-Dade Democrats, these votes reflect a larger concern about the priorities of a Legislature that has spent years using state power to intervene in classrooms, local governments and deeply personal decisions.

From Latinas for Trump to a $5 Million Trump Legal Fund

Garcia's political career has also been closely connected to Donald Trump.

She co-founded Latinas for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and later worked on Latino outreach for Trump's campaign and as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security during his first administration.

In 2024, Garcia filed legislation to create a state “Defending Freedom Fighters Trust Fund.” The proposal carried a $5 million appropriation and was tied to legislation that could provide financial assistance to presidential candidates who claimed they were victims of political discrimination.

Contemporaneous reporting identified Trump as the intended beneficiary. Garcia withdrew the legislation after Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly opposed using state money for Trump's legal expenses. The official Senate record confirms both the $5 million appropriation and Garcia's withdrawal of the bill.

More recently, Garcia sponsored Florida's 2025 law banning geoengineering and weather-modification activities, legislation that became associated with claims about so-called “chemtrails.”

Taken together, Miami-Dade Democrats view these priorities as an example of Tallahassee spending political energy on ideological battles while families in District 36 are looking for action on insurance, housing, utilities, healthcare and flooding.

An Election With an Unusual History

Garcia first entered the Florida Senate following one of the closest and most controversial Florida elections of 2020.

She defeated Democratic Sen. José Javier Rodríguez by just 34 votes in a race that included a third-party candidate with Rodríguez's surname who received more than 6,000 votes.

Investigators later uncovered a “ghost candidate” scheme connected to that election, resulting in criminal charges against political operatives involved in the effort.

Authorities have said they found no evidence that Garcia knew about or participated in the scheme.

She subsequently won reelection after legislative redistricting significantly changed the district.

George Lavín's Priorities for District 36

Lavín is offering a different focus for Tallahassee.

His campaign is organized around three questions: Who pays? Who decides? Who answers for it?

As State Senator, Lavín says he will:

• Take on Florida's affordability crisis, including property insurance and utility costs, while being transparent about what state government can and cannot control.

• Fight for property insurance that works for policyholders, including greater accountability when insurers fail and families are left paying the cost.

• Protect renters and working families from tax changes that shift costs onto people least able to afford them.

• Push for lower utility costs and greater accountability, including requiring the Public Service Commission to consider affordability when approving rates.

• Defend local control, pushing back against Tallahassee's increasing use of state preemption to override decisions made by Miami-Dade cities and counties.

• Revisit the Live Local Act, supporting affordable housing while giving communities a greater voice over development in their neighborhoods.

• Invest in flood protection and climate resilience, while restoring acknowledgment of climate change to Florida law.

• Bring federal healthcare dollars back to Florida to help cover working families who fall into the Medicaid coverage gap.

• Demand greater accountability for public education dollars, including money flowing to charter schools and private-school voucher programs.

• Keep government out of private life, defending decisions involving family, faith and personal identity from unnecessary state interference.

Lavín's platform emphasizes that state government should concentrate on the problems it is actually responsible for solving rather than manufacture new ones.

The Choice in District 36

District 36 voters will decide between an incumbent who has supported much of the Republican Legislature's agenda over the past six years and a challenger arguing that Tallahassee needs a different set of priorities.

For the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, the contrast is clear: George Lavín is running to focus state government on affordability, insurance, housing, education, resilience and restoring power to local communities while providing a check on decades of one-party control in Tallahassee.

That is why the Miami-Dade Democratic Party has endorsed George Lavín for Florida Senate District 36.

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