Opinion | The Case for November

Why Coral Gables should join its neighbors and put more residents in charge of their city's future.

Coral Gables residents are being asked a simple question: should our city join hundreds of others across the country and move our municipal elections to November? The case for doing so is compelling, the evidence is clear, and I am asking residents to vote yes.

Commissioner Castro recently published an opinion piece in the Coral Gables Gazette arguing against this change. I respect her right to make that case. But the residents of Coral Gables deserve to hear the other side, grounded in facts, research, and the experience of hundreds of cities that have already made this move.

The evidence is clear. November elections mean more residents vote in local races. And more residents voting in local races means better, more representative government.

A word about who is raising the alarm

Before addressing the substance of Commissioner Castro’s argument, residents deserve to know something about the messenger.

The Commissioner’s central warning is that November elections will empower developers at the expense of ordinary residents. This argument would carry considerably more weight if it did not come from a sitting Coral Gables commissioner whose private permit-expediting business counts among its most active clients one of the most prominent real estate development families in South Florida, the Whitman family, owners of Bal Harbour Shops, for whose projects she has pulled well over fifty permits.

It would carry more weight still if it did not come from the same commissioner who, while sitting on this dais, introduced a resolution urging the Florida Legislature to amend the Live Local Act to replace countywide Area Median Income calculations with a municipal-based income formula. Because Coral Gables has a significantly higher median income than Miami-Dade County as a whole, that change would have raised the rent thresholds that qualify as attainable under Live Local, making Coral Gables the single most lucrative Live Local development target in South Florida. It would have invited taller buildings, greater density, and a wave of developer-driven projects overriding local zoning protections at a scale this city has never seen. Not one of her fellow commissioners seconded it. It died on the floor.

Invoking developers as a boogeyman is a curious role for Commissioner Castro. It is not one the public record supports.

More voters, not fewer

Coral Gables municipal elections typically draw between 6,000 and 7,000 voters. Our 2025 and 2021 elections were both outliers, each drawing just over 10,000 ballots — strong by any local standard, but still representing less than 30% of registered voters in a city of over 50,000 residents. The vast majority of our neighbors play no role in choosing their local leadership.

November elections change that dramatically.

Research consistently shows that aligning local elections with higher-turnout November cycles substantially increases participation. A widely cited summary of the scholarship finds that on-cycle mayoral elections average about 29% turnout compared with 13% off-cycle, and that shifting on-cycle can raise turnout by roughly 20 percentage points. In major cities that have already made the move, the gains have been immediate and dramatic: Los Angeles rose from 20% to 44%, Baltimore from 13% to 60%, Austin from 11% to 34%, and El Paso from 8% to 55%.

The scale of those gains speaks for itself.

The developer argument does not hold up

The Commissioner argues that November elections will amplify the influence of well-funded development interests. The research points in exactly the opposite direction.

Organized money is most powerful in small, low-turnout elections. When a local race is decided by 6,000 votes, a coordinated donor network can move the outcome with precision. When five times as many residents show up, that leverage evaporates.

UC Berkeley political scientist Sarah Anzia has documented this extensively. Her book, Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups, demonstrates that off-cycle elections are the preferred environment for special interests, not on-cycle ones. If Commissioner Castro is genuinely concerned about developer influence in Coral Gables elections, the evidence points clearly toward November as the remedy, not the threat.

On ballot roll-off

The Commissioner raises the concern that some November voters will not reach local races at the bottom of a long ballot. This is a real phenomenon. But here is the math she omits.

Even accounting for roll-off, November municipal races draw dramatically more total local votes than standalone April elections, often four to five times more. A 20% roll-off rate in a November election with five times our typical April participation still produces far more local votes than a 100% participation rate in an April election.

Preferring a smaller electorate because every voter in it is engaged is, at bottom, an argument for keeping most of your neighbors out of the process.

It saves the city money

This point deserves more attention than it typically receives.

Running a standalone April election is expensive. According to the city’s own ordinance, the Coral Gables general election currently costs approximately $125,000. Held in November alongside state and national races, that same election costs an estimated $20,000, a savings of over $100,000 on the general alone, with additional savings on any runoff. The city bears none of those shared November costs on its own.

Over multiple election cycles, the savings compound. Every dollar not spent on a standalone election is a dollar that stays in the city budget serving residents.

Our neighbors have already decided

Coral Gables would not be breaking new ground. It would be catching up.

Look at the 2026 Miami-Dade election calendar. Aventura, Bal Harbour Village, Biscayne Park, Cutler Bay, Doral, El Portal, Key Biscayne, Medley, Miami Lakes, North Bay Village, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Opa-locka, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, Sunny Isles Beach, and Virginia Gardens all hold their elections in November. Miami-Dade County itself moved its own county elections to the August primary and November general cycle in 2026. And just last week, Surfside voters approved moving their municipal elections from March to November of even-numbered years, with 65% voting yes.

The pattern extends well beyond South Florida. More than 100 cities nationwide have moved their elections onto the state and national cycle. California, Arizona, Nevada, and New York have passed laws pushing their municipalities in this direction. When voters have been asked directly, the results are overwhelming: 77% in Los Angeles, 73% in Phoenix, nearly 70% in King County, Washington.

Tradition is worth preserving when it serves the community. An election calendar that most of the county has already abandoned does not qualify.

A word on process

There has been debate about how this change came about. I have heard the criticism that it should have gone to voters from the start. On that point, Commissioner Castro and I actually agree, which is why it is now going to voters. That is the right process. That is democracy working as it should.

What residents are being asked to decide is not a procedural question. It is a simple one: do you want more of your neighbors participating in the elections that shape this city?

I believe the answer is yes.

What is at stake

Coral Gables is entering its second century. George Merrick built this city with a vision of civic excellence, and every generation since has had the responsibility of living up to it.

Civic excellence requires civic participation. A commission chosen by 6,000 voters in an April election is not more legitimate than one chosen by 30,000 voters in November. It is less so.

The residents who care most about overdevelopment, infrastructure, neighborhood character, and the long-term future of this city deserve to have their numbers count. In November, they will.

I am asking Coral Gables residents to vote yes on this referendum. Not because it benefits any political faction. But because it belongs to all of you.

---

Vince Lago is the Mayor of Coral Gables, currently serving his third term.