Jacksonville Voters Elect Democrat Mayor Over Republican Endorsed by Ron DeSantis

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during an Iowa GOP reception in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on May 13, 2023. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

A Democrat candidate for mayor in Jacksonville, Florida, defeated the Republican candidate backed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a May 16 runoff.

According to the Duval County Supervisor of Elections website, the unofficial results of the May 16 unitary general election has Democrat Donna Deegan with 52.08 percent of the vote. Republican candidate Daniel Davis pulled in 47.92 percent of the vote. Unofficial results do not include provisional ballots, which can be challenged or rejected.

Voter turnout for the contest, which included races for property appraiser and seven city council seats, was 33.05 percent.

Jacksonville, with just under 1 million residents, was the largest city in the nation with a Republican mayor. Due to term limits, outgoing two-term Republican Mayor Lenny Curry could not seek reelection.

While Deegan took 39.43 percent of the vote during the March 21 first unitary election in Duval County, beating all five of her opponents, she did not reach the 50 percent margin of victory, forcing the May 16 runoff.

Deegan, a retired journalist, breast cancer awareness advocate, and generational resident of Jacksonville, was considered the underdog in the race against Davis, a well-funded former Florida state representative.

Action News Jax reported that the 2023 mayoral race for Jacksonville was the most expensive in the city’s history, with the Deegan and Davis amassing nearly $11 million between them.

Davis raised and spent more money than Deegan by a margin of roughly 4 to 1. Where Deegan raised $2.32 million, Davis raked in $8.47 million. In the final weeks leading up to the election, Davis pulled in $1.9 million in donations. Deegan took in $872,000.

The closest rival for filling campaign coffers in a Jacksonville mayoral contest was in 2015 when a collective $9 million was taken in during the race between now-outgoing Curry and Democrat Alvin Brown.

Local Democrats Celebrate

The Duval County Democratic Party heralded the victory on social media, congratulating Deegan for becoming “the First Female Mayor of Jacksonville.”

Deegan’s victory was decribed by some as a stunning upset, but she was leading in the polls since February.

A Feb. 13 survey (pdf) by St. Pete Polls had Deegan with 35.2 percent support among Jacksonville’s registered voters. Of her six opponents, Davis was her closest distant rival with 17.5 percent support. A poll (pdf) released on Feb. 28 by the University of Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab (UNF/PORL) showed Deegan with a comfortable 18-point lead over the crowded field of mayoral hopefuls.

DeSantis endorsed Davis with a post on Twitter on March 31.

Less than a month later, an April 17 UNF/PORL survey (pdf) showed Deegan’s lead over Davis had slipped to “just one percentage point.”

Still, while DeSantis did endorse Davis, he never appeared at any campaign events or made efforts to actively encourage voters to cast their ballots for Davis.

He did, however, travel to Iowa to speak at Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra’s May 13 family picnic.

As previously reported by The Epoch Times, some Florida voters are upset over the reported preparations by DeSantis to toss his hat into the 2024 presidential race.

Just three months after voters in the Sunshine State handed DeSantis a landslide reelection victory, he left the state to go on a book tour through a string of six key primary states. From there, DeSantis traveled to Israel and Japan.

While DeSantis billed the overseas excursion as an “international trade mission,” John Thomas, a GOP political strategist and the founder of the pro-DeSantis super PAC “Ron to the Rescue,” told ABC News it was “the first step” for “any major candidate for the Oval Office” to establish foreign policy credibility.

On April 26, Florida’s legislators passed Senate Bill 7050 (pdf), effectively revising the state’s “Resign-to-Run” law to pave the way for DeSantis to seek the presidency without resigning his seat as governor.

While Ken Lovejoy personally believes DeSantis has done a good job as Florida’s governor, the popular host of local radio program “Charlotte County Speaks” on iHeartRadio confessed he has “taken a lot of heat” for expressing disappointment in the governor’s presidential aspirations.

“I don’t mind him running for president,“ Lovejoy told The Epoch Times. ”But I think it’s the dumbest move he’s made in his political career.”

A recent CBS News survey showed DeSantis with a 35-point deficit in a hypothetical match-up against former President Donald Trump based on how the candidates challenge “woke ideas.” A May 13 survey by Morning Consult placed DeSantis further behind by a measure of 43 points.

When it comes to receiving support, the endorsement tracker by Axios shows DeSantis has the backing of just three Florida state House members and none in the state Senate. Trump has been endorsed by 45 state House Republicans and nine Florida senators.

In the 2022 election, Florida’s voters handed DeSantis a landslide victory over his Democrat opponent, former Florida governor and congressman Charlie Crist. While Democrat voters outnumber Republican voters in Duval County—where Jacksonville is the county seat—DeSantis still won by a margin of 55.44 percent to Crist’s 43.68 percent.

Nathan Worcester contributed to this report.