Steve Simeonidis is the new chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.
Simeonidis, an attorney and the general counsel to the local party's executive committee, was elected chairman late Monday night, beating JP Bado, Ricky Junquera and Jeff Solomon.
Simeonidis beat Junquera in a runoff. Upon his victory, he was handed a copy of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War."
Simeonidis, 31, replaces Juan Cuba, who stepped down last month after serving two years of a four-year term.
In a post ahead of the election, Simeonidis talked about the need to boost Democratic turnout in Florida's most populous county, which came out strong for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but dropped off considerably in the 2018 midterms.
"We have made great strides as a local party. Each election nets us more and more Democratic votes, but we need to push even harder because the big Democratic vote totals out of Miami-Dade are not large enough to overcome the GOP strongholds in our state," Simeonidis wrote. "We need a leader with experience driving large voter turnout."
He also wrote that he wants to focus on electing more Democrats to local positions, including county mayor in 2020.
Simeonidis earned his law degree at the University of Miami. He is deputy general counsel at Windhaven Insurance Company.
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