When the custodian of the John F. Kennedy Library in the city of Hialeah sees a tall young man with curly hair and an extremely serious expression on his face – almost as if he is trying not to look like a child – he looks at him and asks, “Bald Bald Bryan?” The young man holds out his hand. There are still his posters in the legendary Palacio de los Jugos on 49th Street, in the gardens of the houses and in the low-ceilinged doorways, announcing “real change for Hialeah”, the second most populous city in Miami-Dade county and the most Hispanic municipality in the United States. On January 12, Calvo will become mayor of this city. He will take office at just 27 years old.
A staunch supporter of Trump, Calvo is not only the youngest mayor elected in the State of Florida, but it is also the youngest American city with more than 100,000 inhabitants. On the other side of the political spectrum, there is also fresh blood in the form of 34-year-old New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and 38-year-old Detroit Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield. All three succeeded in satisfying voters’ desire for something different from the traditional, aging establishment. “There is a rejection of how things are done at the national level,” Calvo says. “There is no guarantee that younger generations will do better, but there is great hope. Residents want something new.”
Calvo believes that age works in his favor: “What is most useful to me is youth,” he says. Others, however, see it as his Achilles’ heel. Raul L. Martinez, mayor of Hialeah for 24 years, believes Calvo’s biggest challenge “is age and inexperience, because Hialeah is different from other cities in the United States… The mayor here is an administrator, making the day-to-day decisions about the police, the fire department, the library… and if you haven’t had that experience, it’s difficult,” he says.
Entering politics at age 23, Calvo was the youngest councilman in Hialeah’s history. He’s in a hurry because he’s eager to learn and drink it all in. In addition to English and Spanish, he speaks Italian, plays the violin, practices underwater fishing, has been a salsa instructor and got his pilot’s license 10 years ago. “Flying reminds me that focus, preparation and responsibility are important; qualities I have from the cockpit to public service and that I will bring to Hialeah as majors,” he says.
On October 16, in the midst of his campaign, Calvo lost his father, a Cuban businessman who arrived in South Florida in 1980 during the historic Mariel exodus. It was a hard blow for the family and for him; he would have liked his father to see him join the City Council. It was also hard for his mother, the Ecuadorian dressmaker Edith Pardo, who had been by his side for 44 years.
The son of migrants, Calvo will now become a major political figure in his hometown. He often says he is a “product” of Hialeah. Having adopted little of his mother’s Ecuadorian culture, he calls himself Cuban in a city where more than 75 percent of residents are of Cuban descent. Calvo, however, does not remember ever being taken to Cuba, although “maybe when I was little”. Significantly, he says he would now never set foot in Havana again. “My policy is that of the historically exiled, to have no ties to the island until it is free.”
Calvo was educated in Hialeah public schools, played football at Milander Park, enjoys Cuban cuisine at Molina Restaurant and his first language is Spanish, with the odd “so” or “whatever” thrown in every now and then. He studied at Harvard on a full scholarship and, in 2019, graduated with a degree in Government. He then returned to Florida and earned a professional law degree from Florida International University. But a year earlier he had had an experience that would change his life. In the summer of 2018, during Trump 1.0, he was selected for a prestigious White House internship program that, he says, taught him the importance of establishing a small, efficient government that does not regulate its citizens. “It’s one of the most common complaints,” he says, adding that he envisions an entirely different approach.
Calvo believes his time in Washington helped him get elected mayor of Hialeah. During his campaign, flyers appeared with Calvo’s image next to the president, reading: “Supported and recognized by President Trump.” It was a message that resonated in a state where Trump won 56% of the vote in 2024. Although the Miami-Dade County Republican Party has said it does not “endorse” any candidate for mayor of Hialeah, Calvo insists that Trump has “supported and recognized” him.
An alternative to the establishment
In his light blue suit, Calvo walks among the shelves of the John F. Kennedy Library and takes a book from the legal section. He states that his favorite volume, All politics is local by former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill, shaped the politician he became. “Across the political spectrum, there is nothing more powerful than looking a voter in the eye and saying: Trust me,” he says.
Calvo then concentrated on a door-to-door campaign. He was seen talking to elegant Hialeah ladies and visiting Félix Rodríguez, who was in charge of the operation to assassinate Che Guevara. With his Hialeah First platform, he has promised to be an alternative to former Mayor Esteban Bovo, who resigned last April. He promised to lower taxes and water taxes, improve public transportation and work to eliminate property taxes for people over 65.
He has also pledged to investigate companies like Cubamax, which offers travel and remittance services to Cuba, which Cuban-American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also born in Miami, has vowed to address since beginning his tenure in the Trump administration. “We have a lot of complaints about money laundering not only from the Cuban dictatorship, but also from those of Venezuela and Nicaragua,” Calvo says. “I said that these things must be investigated; within the police there are personnel trained to do so and my commitment is to create a team to deal with these problems.”
According to Calvo’s campaign political advisor, Julio E. Ligorria, Calvo’s campaign was different because it “was based on honesty, on closeness… While others focused on propaganda, personal attacks and traditional establishment mechanisms, this campaign tuned in to what people were asking for: transparency.” Ligorria also insists that Calvo won “without depending on political machines, without sponsorships, without contracts, without favors.” The biggest challenge, he says, was “breaking with a system that for years has tried to control everything from narrative to city employees. Calvo does not come from the same political circle that has governed the city for decades.”
The 27-year-old obtained more than 52.9% of the votes, ahead of former commissioner Jesús Tundidor (21%) and interim mayor Jacqueline García-Roves (19%). “This victory belongs to all the families who worked hard and refused to give up on this city,” Calvo said in his victory speech, adding that “Hialeah will not be a haven for Castro interests or those who have benefited from Cuba’s repressive system.”
In a city that is more than 94% Latino and with a large Cuban community affected by Trump’s immigration agenda, Calvo says he won’t stand in the way of ICE raids because immigration policy is a federal matter.
“I’m not a congressman, I’m not president, and these are the branches of government that decide our country’s immigration policy,” he says. “We have signed agreements with federal agencies. If they ask us to assist in an operation, we have a legal and contractual obligation to do so. That doesn’t mean I would do anything beyond what is already established by the federal government. I would not order the police to conduct a raid, but if there is a raid initiated by the federal government, they can call the Hialeah police to assist.”
Things have already started to get complicated for Calvo. After the election victory, the interim mayor prevented municipality employees from having any kind of contact with him, thus preventing him from accessing the information necessary for the transition. Others don’t believe Calvo can keep his promises.
But the young man is nothing if not confident. “If you had asked someone a year ago whether a 27-year-old could become mayor of the second most powerful city in Miami-Dade, they probably would have told you it was impossible,” he says. “No resident expects me to be able to do 100% of what has been talked about, but if I could do just some of it, it would make a dramatic change in this city that hasn’t seen any (change) in the last few years.”
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