Miami-Dade Voters Unseat Judge Who Blocked Trump Presidential Library
A closely watched Florida election produced a dramatic upset Tuesday as voters removed a longtime incumbent from the bench by an extraordinarily narrow margin.
The result follows months of national attention surrounding a controversial court battle, questions about judicial impartiality and a valuable piece of downtown Miami property.
Miami-Dade voters unseated Circuit Judge Mavel Ruiz, who temporarily blocked the transfer of property intended for President Donald Trump’s future presidential library.
Attorney Destiny Alvarez defeated Ruiz by just 2,073 votes in the nonpartisan judicial election and received enough support to avoid a November runoff.
Preliminary Miami-Dade election results showed Alvarez receiving 113,215 votes, or 50.46 percent, compared with 111,142 votes, or 49.54 percent, for Ruiz.
All 767 participating precincts had reported, although the results remained unofficial pending the review of provisional ballots and certification by the Canvassing Board.
The victory was particularly notable because Alvarez is 30 years old and challenged an incumbent who has served on Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit since 2015.
Incumbent Miami-Dade judges also frequently win reelection without attracting challengers, making Tuesday’s result an unusual judicial upset.
Ruiz became a nationally recognized figure following a legal dispute involving land intended for Trump’s presidential library.
Miami Dade College trustees voted in September 2025 to transfer a 2.63-acre employee parking lot to the state for use as the future library site.
The waterfront property sits on Biscayne Boulevard beside Miami’s historic Freedom Tower and was assessed at more than $67 million.
Retired Florida International University professor and former Democratic congressional candidate Marvin Dunn sued the college over the decision.
Dunn argued that trustees violated Florida’s Sunshine Law by failing to provide adequate public notice before approving the transfer.
Ruiz issued a temporary injunction on October 14 preventing the property transfer while the legal challenge proceeded.
The judge said the dispute concerned whether the public had received reasonable notice and insisted her decision was not political.
“This is not an easy decision,” Ruiz said from the bench.
“This is not a case, at least for this court, rooted in politics,” she added.
Miami Dade College subsequently held another meeting on December 2 after providing public notice and allowing members of the public to comment.
Trustees again unanimously approved the property transfer, leading Ruiz to dissolve her injunction and dismiss Dunn’s lawsuit.
County records subsequently showed the property was transferred in February 2026 to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation for $10 through a quitclaim deed.
Ruiz nevertheless faced another controversy stemming from her conduct surrounding the case.
Court filings alleged that Ruiz praised Dunn for reportedly mortgaging his home to cover a court-ordered bond and compared him favorably with a plaintiff from an earlier case.
Dunn also said in a sworn declaration that Ruiz came down from the bench and briefly hugged him following the December hearing.
Miami Dade College subsequently sought to have Ruiz disqualified from any further proceedings involving the dispute.
Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal granted that request on April 29.
The appellate court determined that the allegations were legally sufficient to create a well-founded fear in a reasonably prudent person that the litigant might not receive a fair hearing.
Importantly, the appeals court did not determine that Ruiz was actually biased.
The presidential library dispute and Ruiz’s disqualification became prominent issues surrounding her campaign for another term.
Alvarez received support from several law-enforcement and first-responder organizations as well as Republican officials and donors connected with Trump.
Her campaign emphasized “character, integrity and fairness” and argued that judges should apply the law without allowing personal or political considerations to influence their decisions.
Alvarez’s campaign also declared that judges should not “legislate from the bench, play favorites, or allow politics to influence their decisions,” The Miami Herald reported.
With Alvarez receiving slightly more than 50 percent of the vote, she won the seat outright and will not need to compete in a November runoff.
Karoline Leavitt Fires Up Crowd At First-Ever GOP Midterm Convention
Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made a high-profile return to the national political stage Thursday night, addressing Republicans at the party’s midterm convention in Dallas less than two weeks after leaving the Trump administration.
Leavitt appeared during prime-time programming on the second and final night of the Republican gathering, delivering a speech focused heavily on President Donald Trump’s record and urging supporters to turn out in the November elections.
“We cannot be a wealthy people if we elect extreme liberal socialist Democrats who will raise our rent and taxes, take away our private property, and kill the American dream,” she told the cheering crowd.
“Democrat socialist countries always end in poverty, in famine, in misery, and that’s why we will never allow that to happen here in the United States of America, the best country in the world,” she added.
Democrats’ “false economic promises may sound nice on paper,” she added, “but in practice, they will only result in empty opportunities and broken communities.”
Her appearance marked one of her first major public political events since stepping down as White House press secretary Aug. 27 and rejoining MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC where she previously worked before Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Leavitt opened with a reference to her former job behind the White House briefing-room podium.
“I’m accustomed to addressing a room of people who generally don’t like me very much,” she joked, contrasting the Republican audience in Dallas with members of the White House press corps.
She then took a familiar swipe at mainstream news organizations, referring to reporters she previously confronted during briefings as the “fake news,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
The speech quickly shifted toward the midterms.
Leavitt urged Republican voters not to assume that Trump’s 2024 victory or the party’s current control of Washington would automatically translate into success in November.
“Pair your prayer with action,” she told the crowd, encouraging supporters to vote and help Republicans retain control of Congress.
The Dallas convention was organized largely around that objective.
Trump has made himself the centerpiece of the Republican Party’s 2026 campaign strategy, repeatedly asking supporters to approach the midterms as though he were personally on the ballot.
The two-day event featured Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., congressional leaders and candidates from competitive House and Senate races.
Leavitt’s return carried additional significance because she had only recently left one of the most visible jobs in the administration.
Trump announced Aug. 12 that Leavitt would step down at the end of the month to spend more time with her family.
Leavitt gave birth to her second child, a daughter, in May and said the demands of serving as White House press secretary made it difficult to devote the time she wanted to her two young children.
Trump said at the time that Leavitt would remain one of his top outside advisers and would continue playing a significant role in Republican politics ahead of the midterms.
She subsequently announced that she would return to MAGA Inc., the super PAC aligned with Trump that has accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars for political spending.
That distinction is important: Leavitt is no longer a White House employee and is not serving in an official government communications role.
Her current work places her back in the political operation surrounding Trump through MAGA Inc. and her role as an outside adviser.
Before joining Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, Leavitt had also worked as a spokeswoman for MAGA Inc. from 2022 to 2024. She later became national press secretary for Trump’s campaign before being selected as White House press secretary after his election.
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Leavitt used Thursday’s speech to praise several areas of Trump’s second-term record, including immigration enforcement and crime.
She also offered personal stories about Trump’s interactions with families affected by tragedy, arguing that the public often sees a different side of the president than people who work closely with him.
