Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle held on to her position during Tuesday night’s election – in a race that focused primarily on police reform.
Rundle defeated former Miami-Dade Prosecutor Melba Pearson, with nearly 62% of the vote after 820 of 860 precincts reported their results. It was the seventh election win in a row for Fernandez Rundle, who has held her position as State Attorney for nearly three decades.
"We did not focus on personal attacks of our opponent, instead we focused on the ground breaking achievement of the state attorney’s office," Fernandez Rundle said.
Rundle leaned on her experience during the campaign. Her office received calls for police reform from protesters after the murder of George Floyd, which she says she put in place long ago.
"A lot of the things they are talking about doing we have been doing,” Rundle said.
Programs like courts for veterans, alternative paths for those with drug, alcohol, or mental health problems. She says these programs she installed have aided in cutting crime to its lowest levels in 30 years.
“What we’ve done is rely less on incarceration and more on these therapeutic pathways. We can address those underlying issues and fix them so they don’t return back into the system, back into crime and into our whole process, and that has proven to be very successful,” Rundle said.
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The state attorney also said she supported calls for a Civilian Investigative Panel in Miami-Dade, similar to the one in the City of Miami. The Miami-Dade Commission is expected vote on the CIP panel at the end of this month.
In Broward County, political newcomer Harold Pryor emerged from a field of eight Democrats vying to take the state attorney seat held for four decades by Mike Satz, who is retiring.
"I’m excited because I know that now the people have spoken and it's time for us to initiate this ground-level criminal justice reform and I am excited by the process of the change we are going to have in Broward County going forward," Pryor said.
Pryor will now face in November both a Republican and an independent but with the voting demographics in Broward, he’s the heavy favorite to become the state attorney there.
