Daniella Levine Cava has no competition from the left this summer as the first-term Democrat faces a field of Republican challengers in the election for Miami-Dade County mayor. But her party’s shrinking base in Miami-Dade makes it harder for Levine Cava to secure the decisive win she wants in August.

No Democrat signed up to challenge Levine Cava before Tuesday’s noon filing deadline, leaving her to face a mostly Republican field of opponents who have raised only a fraction of the nearly $4.9 million secured by the incumbent mayor from donors through March 31, the date of the latest full set of campaign-finance reports in the race for all of the candidates.

The six-person field of challengers includes two Republicans who were elected mayors of small municipalities, two Republican hosts of Spanish-language shows, a former Democrat in a fight with county government, and the owner of a valet-parking company who has no party affiliation.

While the race is officially nonpartisan, party politics are an element of campaigning in 2024. Levine Cava’s turnout operation is sharing resources with state Democrats, while her Republican opponents Manny Cid, Shlomo Danzinger, Carlos Garin and Alexander Otaola all posted supportive messages for former President Donald Trump on their campaigns’ social media accounts after his criminal conviction in New York.

But partisan loyalties aren’t the only factor in a race where candidates won’t be identified by the parties on the ballot.

Levine Cava presided over the county response to the condo collapse in Surfside in 2021, a crisis that earned her generally favorable reviews and significant exposure across Miami-Dade and beyond.

Cid is also running online ads criticizing her for allowing property-tax bills to increase through higher real estate values, though her last two budgets included slight decreases in the countywide property-tax rate.

The 2024 mayoral race will end Aug. 20 if any candidate receives more than 50% of the vote during a nonpartisan primary where all seven candidates will be on the same ballot. If not, the two top finishers will face each other in November — a scenario that would lash Levine Cava’s fortunes with the uncertainty of a presidential election where the Democratic nominee appears more vulnerable to a loss than at any time since the 1980s.

“The expectations are such that she’s expected to win in August fairly comfortably,” said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster in Miami, who isn’t working for the Levine Cava campaign. “If for whatever reason she doesn’t, that’s where the concern would be. Because in November, anything can happen.”

County term limits would make this Levine Cava’s final four-year term as a mayor who also serves as the top administrator of the government for a county of nearly 2.7 million residents, the most populous in Florida.

To avoid a November runoff, Levine Cava, 68, will have to win a majority of votes in a contest that was formally set Tuesday. With no last-minute entries, the field of challengers is:

• Manny Cid, 40, the Republican mayor of Miami Lakes, a town with a population of about 31,000 people. He has raised about $385,000 through March 31.

• Shlomo Danzinger, 45, the Republican former mayor of Surfside, a town with a population of about 5,500 people. He joined the race in April and so far has no fundraising report through the first quarter of the year.

• Carlos Garin, 59, is a Spanish-language broadcaster with Radio Mundo and a Republican who is planning a fundraiser later this month to coincide with Trump’s birthday. Garin’s 2018 race for the County Commission seat currently held by Eileen Higgins ended with him finishing last, with 5% of the vote. Garin reported raising almost $9,000 through March 31.

• Alexander Otaola, 45, is the Republican host of a Spanish-language YouTube show “Hola! Ota-ola,” which focuses on politics and news about Cuba. In the 2016 election, his show was credited with boosting Trump’s support among Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade. He used his show to solicit campaign cash for his first race and has raised about $290,000 as of March 31.

• Miguel Quintero, 45, was a Democrat until earlier this year, when he switched his registration to the Libertarian Party. A trapeze artist, Quintero is in a long-running fight with county regulators over the acrobatics school he runs in his backyard. As of March 31, he has raised about $5,900 for the race.

• Eddy Rojas, 39, is an independent who also owns a valet-parking company. This is his first political race, and he’s raised $2,400 as of March 31.

As she seeks reelection, Levine Cava can’t lean on Democrats the way she could in 2020 for the open mayor’s seat, when her 8-point victory in November dovetailed with President Joe Biden’s 7-point win over Trump in Miami-Dade. Four years ago, Democrats had a more than 200,000-voter advantage over Republicans in Miami-Dade. The latest registration figures show that gap has dropped to about 65,000 voters.

That margin still leaves Republicans in third place behind independents but complicates the path to the Aug. 20 win that Levine Cava is telling supporters is her goal. “Once and done in August,” she said at the April 28 opening of a Miami Gardens office her campaign is sharing with Florida’s Democratic Party.

In 2016, incumbent mayor Carlos Gimenez was pushed into a November runoff against fellow Republican Raquel Regalado, then a school board member. Gimenez raised $4.5 million to Regalado’s nearly $1 million ahead of the August primary, where the mayor fell short of a majority with 48% of the vote, 16 points ahead of Regalado in the seven-candidate field. Gimenez, now a Republican member of Congress, won a second term as mayor by double digits in the November runoff against Regalado, who is now a Miami-Dade commissioner.

Pedro Diaz, a Republican political consultant who is not representing any candidate in the mayoral contest, said he thinks Levine Cava is facing enough opponents with political constituencies to deny her a majority of the August vote, a concept often called “50-plus-1,” which refers to the one vote over 50% that a candidate needs to avoid a runoff.

“It’s obviously a crowded race,” he said. “I think there will be a runoff. … I think she’ll be just under the 50-plus-1 mark.”