Paul V. Wilson Jr. won Seat 2 on the Miami Gardens City Council outright Tuesday, capturing about 55% of the vote in a three-way primary and securing a four-year term representing the Norland and Andover neighborhoods. He celebrated with family, friends and a 12-person junkanoo band, a nod to his Bahamian roots. Wilson is the son of retiring U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, whose more than three decades in elected office are winding down just as her son steps into local government.
According to official results from the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, Wilson pulled in 2,163 votes, or 55.12%, to defeat Linnette Smith, who received 914 votes (23.29%), and Lavern V. Deer, who took 847 votes (21.59%), out of 3,924 total ballots cast in the race. Wilson described the win as a labor of love, telling the Miami Herald the campaign was “something that I wanted to do my way.”
Wilson launched his campaign in February, drawing on more than two decades working in South Florida public education. He built his platform around youth opportunities, small business support and senior housing, according to The Culture, which also detailed his work with the local 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project, an advocacy program his mother founded in 1993 while serving as principal of Skyway Elementary School in Miami Gardens.
A Family Legacy in Transition
The mentorship program Wilson worked with has grown far beyond its Miami-Dade origins. Per WLRN, the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project now mentors more than 8,000 minority male students annually across multiple states. Rep. Frederica Wilson announced in May that she would not seek re-election to Florida's 24th Congressional District, closing out more than 30 years in local, state and federal office, a retirement she announced during a ceremony at the elementary school that now bears her name.
Seat 2 had been held for seven years by Councilman Reggie Leon, who reached his term limit this month and publicly endorsed Wilson as his successor, the same report from The Culture noted. That backing figured into an open-seat race that also carried the added scrutiny of Wilson running as part of a prominent political family in Florida's largest majority-Black city. Miami Gardens, incorporated in 2003, is home to roughly 111,000 residents, with Black residents making up more than 58% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Seat 4 Race Heads to a November Runoff
Not every council seat was settled this week. In the Seat 4 primary, business owner Mykita Cherry-Prime, a Miami-Dade County public school teacher, took roughly 46% of the vote, while community advocate and former University of Miami Hurricanes football player Rod Mack earned about 40%, with Angela Maria Wynter receiving about 14%, per the Miami Herald's reporting. Because no candidate cleared 50%, the Miami Gardens Charter sends Cherry-Prime and Mack to a runoff election scheduled for November 3, coinciding with the statewide general election, as confirmed by the City of Miami Gardens.
Elsewhere on the ballot, Vice Mayor and At-Large Seat 6 Councilman Robert Stephens III automatically won re-election after no opponents qualified to run against him. Stephens, first appointed to the council in 2020 before winning a full term in 2022, threw a Jamaica-themed celebration just days before the election, as Hoodline previously reported.
A Low-Turnout Primary With High Stakes
Countywide turnout for the August 18 primary reached just 18.98%, with 244,454 ballots cast out of 1,288,156 registered voters across Miami-Dade County, the elections department reported. Off-year municipal primaries in South Florida have historically drawn far fewer voters than November general elections, a pattern that held even as Wilson's race and the open congressional seat left by his mother drew heightened local attention.
That congressional race, triggered by Rep. Wilson's retirement, produced a crowded Democratic primary for District 24 featuring former Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert III and State Sen. Shevrin Jones, a contest Hoodline covered in its district poll coverage. District 24 encompasses Miami Gardens and surrounding northern Miami-Dade communities, meaning the same voters weighing Wilson's council bid were also deciding who would inherit his mother's congressional seat.
