NATION IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Miami’s Lone Black Commissioner Wins

The lone elected black on Miami’s City Commission won overwhelming support from black voters and defeated his Cuban-born challenger in runoff elections. With all 86 precincts reporting, Miller Dawkins, 64, a two-term incumbent, had 18,245 votes, or 52.7%, to 16,402 votes, or 47.3%, for Joe Carollo. Totals from ethnic-dominated precincts in this racially tense city showed Dawkins, an administrator at Miami-Dade Community College, carrying nearly 99% of the black vote and 75% of the Anglo vote. Carollo carried the Latino vote with 78%. Dawkins had said he did not believe his was “the black seat” on the commission but he also said the city’s blacks--who make up about 30% of the voters--deserved representation on the body. Carollo, 34, a former commissioner, ran Spanish-language ads saying that “all the Cubans vote for Carollo.”