2023 Jacksonville Mayoral Election (jungle primary 3/21, runoff 5/16)

[Dereich]

I thought I'd do a fairly quick rundown on recent politics of Jacksonville and the upcoming mayoral election since Jacksonville politics have been fairly exciting in the lead up to this one. Jacksonville is extremely closely divided politically though Republicans still mostly dominate at the local level. The election is jungle primary style, round one set for March 21st with the top two facing off on May 16th. It is basically guaranteed that there will be a round two as there are three (maybe four, if I'm generous) very prominent candidates fighting for the top two. But first, the background:

The Curry Administration and the Privatization of JEA

The current mayor, Lenny Curry was elected in 2015 after defeating incumbent Democrat Alvin Brown who had made just enough enemies to be vulnerable to a well run campaign. Curry was always a bigger statewide name than a local one; he was never involved in local Jacksonville politics and started his run for office after a term as the Florida GOP Chairman. His administration has been insular and highly centralized around confidants and important donors; one might almost call it Trumpian. His campaigns have been extremely well funded and well run, as befitting the former head of the state party, but Curry left a lasting impression of parachuting in from Tallahassee. His biggest and most important donor of all is Shad Khan, billionaire owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Since he bought the Jaguars in 2012 Khan has spent hundreds of millions across the city, particularly in the areas around the shipyards and the Jaguar's stadium. While the man himself is popular, his outsized political influence on the Curry Administration has ruffled feathers. Back in 2018 Khan put forward the "Lot J" proposal, strongly backed by the Curry Administration, to have the city spend $500 million on a hotel and business development project next to the lot J parking lot of the Jaguar's Stadium. But how to raise that money? Curry is a prominent Republican; he couldn't raise taxes. The need to raise more money for Khan's (unpopular) proposal and the Curry Administration's disconnected and tonedeaf approach to local politics led to the biggest political firestorm in decades, the attempted privatization of JEA in 2019.

JEA, the Jacksonville Electric Authority, is the largest public owned utilities company in Florida and eighth largest in the country. While it has a history of being poorly run, the consensus is that since the early 2000s JEA has had a decent-to-good service record and some of the cheapest rates in Florida. It was (probably importantly!) certainly better regarded than Florida Power and Light, the private energy company that services several local counties. Curry began laying the groundwork in his first term by firing and replacing the whole JEA board of directors and then appointing his close friend Aaron Zahn to be the interim CEO. While his (Republican head of the city council) main opponent accused Curry of trying to privatize JEA just before his reelection in March of 2019, at that point Curry swore up and down that he had no intention of doing so. Within weeks of his reelection, Curry and Zahn started the process to fast track the privatization process.

I think it came as a surprise to EVERYONE how strong and swift the backlash was to privatization. The plot singlehandedly revitalized and gave purpose to the local newspaper, the Florida Time-Union, which ran frontpage stories on the attempt every day for months. As more and more outlandish things came out about the plan, including Florida Power and Light offering an opponent on the city council a $250,000 job as a lobbyist for marijuana legalization if they'd step down, revelations that JEA had risen rates 4 times in a year at the behest of Zahn to make their rates look worse compared to private companies, evidence that consultants were hired to make the utility look worse and less effective than it was, a poorly thought out speech by Curry to the City Council demanding that they stop any investigations into the sale, and the reveal that Zahn and the new board of directors had created huge golden parachutes for themselves that would apply if the sale went through. All of this led to the utter collapse of the privatization, the arrest and indictment of Zahn for fraud, the end of Lot J, and an end to Curry's political capital and influence. Its a great story; those who want to know more can check out the sale's timeline, the local investigation on the secret plots or the links between the administration and the sale.

COVID and Beyond

COVID was one of the luckiest breaks that Curry got, if only because it stopped the constant news about JEA. Jacksonville had a decent enough COVID; the city has a very good medical network spearheaded by the Mayo Clinic and all political forces were pretty much on the same page. Unfortunately for Curry, he was outshone by more prominent Jacksonvillian Ron DeSantis and never got to benefit much. Since COVID, there were only a few political stories which have had any sustained interest: first, Curry's bizarre decision last year to suspend all curbside recycling for six months after the waste disposal companies had a few delayed/late days and the question of removal of local Confederate monuments. Even that has been a bit muted since local Republican politicians aren't fighting the idea of removing the monuments and have allotted money to remove them, its just been a slow process. Not helped by the pro-Confederate activists flying banners over the city during NFL games.

All of this leaves us with a top two election in a highly divided city in which Republicans are dragged down by the current administration (this is not the last time I will be mentioning JEA in this race!) and brutal infighting between a pro-Curry and anti-Curry heavyweight but benefit from national headwinds, huge amounts of money, and good vibes thanks in decent part to Khan's investments and the finally good Jaguars. On the right, the race has produced the HIGHLY amusing spectacle where every Republican claims to be the most conservative and most anti-privatization candidate in the same breath. The Democrats, meanwhile, have much less money and a worse local organization but no ties to the absolute mess Curry made and have the most well-known and popular candidate in the race. There's been basically no polling so nobody knows what's going to happen come March. This has gone longer than I expected so I'll follow up with the big candidates next post.

[Dereich]

Serious Candidates

Daniel Davis (R) Current head of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, former State Representative. At the start of the year he had $4.5 million cash on hand. The establishment pro-Curry Republican and likely favorite to reach the second round. At one point back in 2010 or so represented the hardest right of local Republican politics but times change. Has united most but not all of local establishment behind him. While the new sheriff, local congressman, and his Chamber of Commerce are supporting him, some normal establishment organizations like Fire & Rescue are favoring Cumber.

LeAnna Cumber (R) City Council Member. At the start of the year had about $2.8 million cash on hand. The anti-Curry Republican. Every Republican who was left out in the cold by Curry has now come out of the woodwork to support Cumber. Her base of support comes from developers, new money, and small/medium business owners who have seen big donors and Curry allies enjoy all the political influence. Third most likely to reach the second round

Donna Deegan (D) Former news anchor, runs a cancer non-profit, 2020 Democratic Congressional Candidate. Started the year with about $700k cash on hand. As mentioned, in the one poll for this race back in October she was the only candidate to break double digits with a cool 22%. Her campaign has been very low key and positive. She hasn't said much about any issues and has focused on her personality. Its been successful in that she, the most popular and well known candidate, has mostly escaped attacks from the two with deep enough pockets to attack her. I think she's also highly likely to reach round 2.

Somewhat Serious

Audrey Gibson (D) Former State Senator and Senate Minority Leader. Had about $150k cash on hand in January. Gibson represented a district composed mostly of Downtown Jacksonville until 2022. I haven't seen much in terms of support or advertisement for Gibson; her campaign has been laser focused on downtown and Northside areas that she used to represent or are majority black. Gibson's plan is the same one Alvin Brown had back in 2011; unite a large enough block of Black Democrats to get to the 2nd round on 20-25% support. With the lack of polling its hard to tell how successful she's been, but I very much doubt she'll succeed. Her last few campaigns were uncontested and Deegan has a more far-reaching campaign organization. I think the real risk is that she Deegan split the Democratic vote and let Cumber and Davis into the second round.

Joke Candidates

Everyone else


Currently, Davis and Cumber are engaged in a vicious negative ad campaign. Cumber is accusing Davis of being soft on sex crimes against children due to his vote back in 2013 on a bill to address abuse against children in unlicensed religious homes for children, a bill that failed by one vote. Cumber also put out an ad accusing Davis of supporting JEA privatization back in 2019. Davis, meanwhile, is accusing Cumber of keeping her own involvement in the JEA privatization secret, pointing to her husband's involvement with a private equity firm that made a bid during the privatization process. On that note, at Mayor Curry's request, the city council opened a special committee yesterday into Cumber's potential undisclosed involvement in the sale. A committee headed by a Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce executive...

[Dereich]

what are the chances Deegan wins outright?

Oh definitely none. Gibson is definitely going to take some percentage and the absolute ceiling for any Democrat is going to be ~55%. Deegan making it to 40 would be a stellar night for her.

[Dereich]

We have a poll! Its a poll with decimals, but its still a poll! A fairly surprising one too:

Donna Deegan (D): 35.2%
Daniel Davis (R): 17.5%
Al Ferraro (R): 10.6%
Audrey Gibson (D): 10.2%
LeAnne Gutierrez Cumber (R): 4.1%
Omega Allen (I): 2.4%
Frank Keasler (R): 0.4%

Undecided / Won’t say: 19.7%

Runoff

Donna Deegan: 51.3%
Daniel Davis: 25.8%


478 LV, St. Pete Polls from February 13th

That Cumber, who has spent more in the last month than Deegan has raised in total, is all the way at 4% is pathetic. I still expect her to outperform these numbers by quite a bit since she's gotten several recent endorsements from local organizations known to campaign well, but its a bad sign for her making it to round 2. Al Ferraro, undistinguished city councilor and lawn service owner, is also doing surprisingly well.

No one is really attacking her yet, but Deegan seems well placed to take over the largest city in the country currently run by a Republican.

[Dereich]

Another poll:

Donna Deegan (D): 37%
Daniel Davis (R): 20%
Al Ferraro (R): 8%
Audrey Gibson (D): 7%
LeAnna Gutierrez Cumber (R): 5% (lol)
Frank Keasler (R): 3%
Omega Allen (I): 1%

Undecided / Won’t say: 22%

Runoff:

Donna Deegan (D): 48%
Daniel Davis (R): 39%

593 LV, University of North Florida 2/20-2/24


I think the polling is fair; Deegan is well known and at minimum not disliked. Most of what UWS said above isn't really worth addressing but I would specifically disagree with what he said about Deegan's run in 2020. That was widely seen as an overperformance; it was the closest race in the district in 20 years. Deegan getting 39% against the incumbent former sheriff in the white parts of Jacksonville in a law-and-order election is the biggest reason that she's the Democratic frontrunner instead of Gibson.

As I've said, I expect a close race in the end and Davis is clearly saving his money now that he no longer sees Cumber as a threat, but he's obviously going to start from a disadvantage.

[Dereich]

Its election day! Turnout has been absolutely abysmal. Turnout has only just now topped 2019 when there was no Democrat on the ballot. During early voting turnout among voters under 60 was 6.2% (compared to 28.4% for those over 60) and Republicans hold a 74k to 68k lead in currently cast votes. There is certainly no chance with those numbers of a round 1 win. It also looks like the final spending numbers will have been about $10 million for the Republican candidates to about $1 million for the Democrats.

My prediction:

Deegan 37
Davis 25
Ferraro 15
Cumber 10
Gibson 9
Others 3

[Dereich]

What kind of campaign did Deegan run to get this kind of crossover support from Republicans?

Not much of one; she didn't need to. She was far and away the most well-known candidate due to her prior news work and charity activities. The charity activities are worth highlighting especially; it was very good for her political career that her charity's marathon (the biggest annual marathon and charity event in the city for 15 years) is called the DONNA marathon. Lots of positive name recognition.

[Dereich]

https://twitter.com/FLPolEnjoyer/status/1638371579104051200

Anyone have any insight into what happened in City Council District 1?

This district has been growing steadily more democratic for over a decade due to white flight, a process that is ongoing in the area. However, particularly near Jacksonville University and along the river there are still a few gated community and clumps of older white Jacksonvillians who have lived there all their lives. The younger black electorate and JU students had abysmal turnout and mostly don't show up for non-presidential races (Rubio also won the district in 2022) while the older whites in the area are exactly the sort who still show up and vote GOP in every local election but might not have done so in lockstep for Trump.

[Dereich]

The disparity in the 1st district city council race compared to the mayoral result in the same district was unusual; while I stand by what I said earlier for a good part of that result, but looking into it further it looks like there was a bit of a scandal which I missed with the Democratic candidate a few weeks ago where he lied about his resume, saying he'd gone to the local community college when he did not. That could also have contributed to the overly wide scope of the loss.

[Dereich]

An update! We're about a month out from the runoff.

First, the biggest election story has been "Permitgate". The city denied the DONNA Foundation's permit for its Mother's Day 5k charity run saying it was too close to the election and that the organization was too associated with Deegan to allow it to go forward. The whole thing looked rather bad for all involved and the city eventually backed down when their general counsel stated that there was no legal basis to deny the permit.

In terms of fundraising, Davis continues to blow Deegan out of the water having raised about $550,000 to Deegan's $180,000 since the first round. As far as ads, the tones have stayed the same; Davis going aggressive with an ad accusing Deegan of hating police for attending Black Lives Matters protests while Deegan's have been exclusively positive and mostly issueless fluff. Interestingly, Ferraro and Cumber have declined to endorse Davis while Gibson actively refused to endorse Deegan.

 
As far as polling, there was one poll that came out this week from somewhere called "Frederick Polls" which doesn't actually list its poll results on its website. It shows the race consolidating but with Deegan still holding a lead. According to pictures taken of its results summary, the race currently stands at

Deegan (D): 54
Davis (R): 46

Again, we don't have the crosstabs but apparently they found decent crossover numbers for Ferraro and Cumber voters going for Deegan. The little information we do have can be found here.

[Dereich]

New poll! UNF has a poll out this morning showing Republicans consolidating behind Davis.

Deegan (D): 48%
Davis (R):    47%

UNF PORL, 650 LV 3.8% MOE April 10-11

If the race is indeed consolidating and turnout is anything like as bad as it was for round 1 it now looks very possible for Davis to overcome his unpopularity and keep the largest GOP held city in Republican hands.

[Dereich]

With Davis winning 58 % of the Latino vote in Jacksonville shows his momentum just like George W. Bush won 56 % of FL’s Latino vote in 2004, which is one of the reasons why he won the Duval County with 58% of the vote over Kerry’s 41%

https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004//pages/results/states/FL/P/00/epolls.0.html

Maybe? Jacksonville is much less Hispanic than other parts of the state; just over 6% of the electorate here is Hispanic and is (though I can only speak anecdotally on this point) it is much less Cuban than other Hispanic populations here. Duval County might not quite fit the statewide Hispanic voting patterns. Also, the UNF poll only had 25 Hispanic respondents so I definitely think you shouldn't read too much there.

[Dereich]

Duval is a Democratic-trending County. Democrats have a 5-Point Registration Edge so they should win this going away.

Demographics are never destiny, especially in Florida. Expecting higher voter registration numbers to prevail over a better message, candidates, and campaigning is exactly what doomed the Florida Democrats to begin with. The Duval County GOP, unsurprisingly, has major advantages in party organization and much better funded campaigns than their Democratic counterpart. The only reason this is a race at all instead of a GOP coronation is the weakness of Davis and strength of Deegan compared to their parties.

Dereich, any last thoughts on the race?

Its election day, turnout has been slightly higher than the primary but still pretty bad. The Democratic early vote lead was just in the last hour erased by GOP election day turnout.

Every indication is that there will be a GOP turnout advantage, probably around 4% compared to the 5.5% advantage they had in the primary. Everyone is expecting Deegan to get SOME crossover; she's well known/liked and Davis is a wet blanket who stepped on a lot of toes during the campaign. I didn't mention it in the thread before but Davis skipped the debates after the first one (perhaps in line with what some other GOP candidates have been discussing) and had far fewer speeches and public appearances than Deegan; he's a pretty poor public speaker and clearly dislikes doing so.

The whole thing comes down to whether Deegan's crossover support is high enough to overcome superior GOP turnout. Just from anecdotes I think the crossover votes are there for Deegan but at heart I'm a cynic who believes that Davis's extremely negative campaign and (R) will be just enough for him to win. I dunno; we'll see tonight.

[Dereich]

Donna Deegan is a far-leftist "Defund the Police" type of Democrat anyways.

Your definition of far-left would have to include Joe Manchin and everyone to his left to be correct here. Lenny Curry and Daniel Davis both attended the same marches that Deegan did here.


Polls are now closed. Republicans ended with a lead of 7200 votes (a lead of 3.32% over the Democrats). Total voters: 217,687. An abysmal turnout of 33%.

Deegan leads 57-43 with just the early votes counted.

[Dereich]

Donna Deegan is a far-leftist "Defund the Police" type of Democrat anyways.

lmao now sis, you tried it

Well that WAS the main lines of attack for the Davis campaign. Its not like its out of the blue.

[Dereich]

Deegan outpreformed the registration of early/absentee voters.  She is currently up 17K, Reps had a about a 14K election day turnout advantage. It will be close but I would rather be Deegan at this point.

I think it’s pretty safe to say she will win, the question is more the margin. The property appraiser race looks like a tossup. City council at large is likely GOP.

I'm pretty confident in saying that city council is safe GOP.

With 115 / 186 precincts reporting Deegan leads 92,989 (53.50%) to Davis's 80,822 (46.50%)

[Dereich]

Very thankful that after 2000 Florida got so much better at running and counting elections.

Precincts Reporting: 168 / 186

Deegan: 106,480 (52.61%)

Davis: 95,934 (47.39%)

[Dereich]

The media is starting to call it for Deegan. The biggest Republican-led city in the country is picked up by the Democrats.

Wow, Deegan really outperforming the voter reg - was expecting a loss after seeing those earlier. Exciting! FL Dems aren't completely dead after all!

I've made the point earlier in the thread; Deegan had quite a few advantages that were absolutely necessary to overcome the superior GOP election organization. This election is not a good sign for the Florida Democrats; Deegan didn't win because of their support, she overcame them dragging her down.

[Dereich]

For the remaining at-large elections Joyce Morgan (D) is currently leading for property appraiser 50.5%-49.5% while Chris Miller (R) is winning 52.3%-47.7% in the at-large city council race. There's a NIMBYite building height amendment up for vote in the Beaches that Morgan attached herself to. The beaches turnout was the biggest turnout bright spot for today; I'm willing to say that was a big part of Morgan doing so well.

[Dereich]

Wow, Deegan really outperforming the voter reg - was expecting a loss after seeing those earlier. Exciting! FL Dems aren't completely dead after all!

One local election doesn't undo past failures. if anything, its just more evidence that persuasion effects are really only working to the benefit of the Dems in a post-Roe environment.

And Dem's improving in the Jacksonville metro won't win them the state, as show by 2020. Its a good flip, but Florida is a big state full of large independently moving voter cohorts, and the FLDP's perpetual problem is they are campaigning for the votes based on the alignment of cohorts in the last election, when change is rapid enough and fluid enough to leave them behind. If you want a hot take, it's that the FLDP fell into their problems the moment the disparate voter groups became large enough to matter, and 2000 just revealed it to the world.

What's a way FLDP can overcome that?

Theories have been debated, strategies have been tried, tens of millions have been wasted trying to answer that question. No one has an answer. It took the GOP decades to build its machine and overcome decades of Democratic dominance. No chance the Democrats can find an immediate quick fix.