Jacksonville Mayoral Election 2023

[marcuscnelson]

I imagine the true plan this whole time was that Curry was supposed to sell JEA to FPL or whoever, and yield $8 billion in cash with which to pay off the pension debt, buy the stadium, jail, and convention center, plus whatever other favors would have been needed to clear the path for Davis. With the JEA sale scuttled, all Curry could do was just smooth things over long enough for Davis to hopefully slip through.

I think ever since the idea of the Jail/Convention Center swap became clear last year, most of us here have been pretty dismayed about the concept. It's just such an easier thing to kick down the road compared to smaller investments with bigger impacts. I feel like a BJP-style sales tax plan (maybe separate referendums on infrastructure and transportation plans) and finally fixing the trash fee get us most of the way there from a revenue standpoint.

Agree, Curry was going to hoc JEA so he could solve all the financial issues of his making while making it appear that he did much good for the City, albeit at taxpayer expense.  The Pension Fund, Gas Tax, Renaissance and Better Jacksonville bond issues were variations on this same theme... spend a bundle of money today and let future taxpayers and mayors deal with the fallout.

Doing another sales tax funded bond may not be good for several reasons.  I think the City has used its full 1 percent local sales tax option for the gas tax and BJP bonds and can't do more under State law.  Also, sales tax is very regressive.  And, not sure the City can do more bonding without endangering its credit rating raising its cost of borrowing (see Nate Monroe's full article).  The best answer is raising property tax rates which have been lowered or held for the last 15 to 20 years keeping revenues too low.  Property tax revenue has also been eroded by all the exemptions the State keeps adding.

I might add, the City has squandered much of its bond money on worthless or patronage projects and/or overpaying for same.  Exhibit A: Giving JTA money for autonomous vehicles.

I get the sense that throwing a sales tax to a referendum is politically easier than getting Council to raise property taxes, but you make a fair point all the same. I was under the impression that having a revenue source to back the bonds would be sufficient to maintain the credit rating. Elections do have consequences when it comes to what public funds are spent on. Let the Gate son buy his way in and you get a half-billion dollar courthouse. Let the Chamber guy buy his way and you get a half-billion dollar prison. I wonder, could restoring the mobility fee be on the table too? I recall the last of those discussions being a while ago.

When it comes to JTA, I feel like it's not unreasonable to consider that the U2C funding could be redirected with a simple piece of legislation, unlike JTA's other sources. I don't think it's out of the question that some level-headed leadership with a practical approach to mass transit could call for a transportation plan based on those real needs. Because as has been said for a while, a quarter-billion dollars can actually get you a lot in terms of transit, it just depends on how you invest it.

[fsu813]

^ As I recall, Peyton brown nosed the police and fire personnel to build his base and while mayor, rewarded them handsomely.  Looks like Davis is on the same track.  Not sure of timing, but I seem to recall Peyton also either refused to raise property taxes or actually lowered them.  With either strategy, it dug the City's financial hole bigger.  Of course, Peyton also blew $360 million dollars on the Courthouse that should have cost less than half if he followed the Fed's lead and built up instead of out.  But, he wanted to appease the judges so, again, no backbone.  Not impressed if Davis is a clone of Peyton or Curry or both.  We need a new approach to leadership, not more of our past.

Every candidate for every office wants police and fire's endorsement.

Peyton raised taxes (multiple times?) to address the city's budget crisis.

He implemented the only successful anti-crime program we've had in the last 30 years, the Jacksonville Journey.

Peyton prioritized improving our park system.

Plenty of criticisms, as well, but we could do A LOT worse than a Peyton-esque trajectory for our next mayor.

[jaxlongtimer]

^ Points noted.  But help me out... What were Peyton's tax increases exactly?   What exactly did he do for parks?  How did he manage the police and fire pension plan and budgets?

The Courthouse is a monument to wasteful spending and killing off a significant portion of Downtown for the rest of our lifetimes.  That clearly falls on his shoulders.

I will grant you the Jacksonville Journey was a good deed.  And, compared to Curry, Peyton looks saintly.  But, compared to my expectations, he doesn't make the cut anymore than most of the other modern mayors.

[vicupstate]

Peyton DID prioritize parks for about a month.  It was a well thought out plan and based on the uber successful Minneapolis model. Minneapolis is considered to have the best Parks and Rec system in the country, with every resident within 6 blocks or less of a park. However, city council opposition to losing control over their park patronage fiefdoms quickly surfaced, and Peyton dropped the idea like a hot potato.   

Peyton did court the Police and Fire folks and got their full backing. As memory serves they were less than happy with the results they got. I specifically remember him getting booed at one of the 'Guns and Hoses' [police vs. firefighter] boxing event at the arena during his term.

As far as the courthouse, the original version (as rendered under the Delaney administration for the BJP) had just as big or bigger footprint. It was just a much grander building. It really is a shame that one didn't get built, but construction costs soared between the time it was approved and the time the construction was ready to start. I can't place the blame for that on Peyton too much, and I have never been a fan of him.

The Property tax increases Peyton did were not rolling back the millage to back out the increase in the annual valuation. Not doing so is concerned a tax increase, and Peyton himself called it that when his opponent Matt Carlucci had voted likewise as a member of council.  Once elected, Peyton did the exact same thing he criticized Carlucci for doing, and multiple times too. I can't remember if it was twice or three times. 

Peyton's predecessor, John Delaney, rollback the millage for the increased valuation and then some, every year for eight years, IIRC. Unfortunately for Peyton, Delaney had the fortune of a growing national economy the whole time. Almost as soon as Peyton took office, the economy turned south in a big way, which put Peyton in a lurch. He ended up adding some new fees to the water bills while in office.             

[jaxlongtimer]

^ All noted and "thanks for the memories."   

Based on my recall, I have to at least take exception on the Courthouse.  There were still multiple options to choose from including going vertical and Peyton made the choice to build what we have.  Just because there were even worse options doesn't excuse not picking the best.  The Feds, only a few years earlier, built a building at least half the size and to the highest security standards for $80 million.  Given it was a recession at the time, I don't recall huge inflation in construction costs.  If it was over budget, the City did a poor job of estimating a realistic cost and/or added on a lot of change orders and upgrades (to appease spoiled judges, which I recall happened).

The above is a pattern for City projects.  They all seem to run way over estimates sold to taxpayers when seeking approval.  This includes the stadium and Osborn convention center among many. Let's face it, the City is a terrible manager of real estate, development and construction, bar none.

[jaxlongtimer]

Based on Monroe's column below, the City has unfunded pension debts totaling about $4 billion.  That's about $4,000 for every man, woman and child in Duval County and it is still growing.  Thank you, Mayor Curry and City Council!  And, that doesn't include deferred funding for the solid waste fund or a backlog of infrastructure needs/wants.

Monroe calls out the ploy of candidates to court police and fire fighters with support for their pension benefits.  I support paying market benefits, not more, for them but, that said, if the City takes on the obligation, we need to fund it concurrently, not roll up years of underfunding and kick the can down the road for decades at a high financing cost.  That is just fiscal irresponsibility. I see Curry 2.0, Daniel Davis, taking Curry's lead with his recent quotes.

Nate Monroe: Jacksonville police and fire pension debt explodes to $2.6 billion

COMMENTARY | Jacksonville City Hall's debt to the Police and Fire Pension Fund climbed to its highest-ever level for the fifth straight year, topping $2.6 billion in October 2022, according to a draft analysis of the fund's financial health, a potential ticking time bomb for a new mayor and City Council that will confront a raft of thorny financial problems when they take office this summer.

The pension debt — called the unfunded liability — jumped by more than $280 million over the course of a single year, owed in part to poor investment returns, and will require the city to pay $171 million in the next budget, which will be the new mayor and council's first. The fund is now less than 46 percent funded, which means it only has enough money to cover less than 46 percent of the financial obligations it has to police and fire retirees and employees.

The report projects that ratio will drop to 40 percent by 2030. That would be the second-worst financial performance the fund will have had in the prior three decades.

In 2015, the year Mayor Lenny Curry took office, the unfunded liability was about $1.8 billion.

The degrading health of the fund is also, in a sense, a matter of intentional design. Curry convinced voters in 2016 to pass a complex series of changes to the way the city pays and calculates its pension debt. Taken together, the changes are akin to refinancing credit card debt: instead of paying off the debt quickly, it will spread the cost out through 2060, a delay that will, much like credit card debt, cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars extra on the back end. The idea was to free up money in the short term — without these changes, the city would have to pay about $80 million more on top of the $171 million next year — but at a significant and far higher long term cost.

That essentially wiped out a previous reform plan enacted by former Mayor Alvin Brown that was based on a theory endorsed by most pension experts: pay off the unfunded liability quickly. It also required quirky rewrites to state law that allow Jacksonville to use accounting tricks to calculate its annual pension payments.

The second prong of Curry's plan was to take an existing half-cent sales tax — the half-penny that has been paying off debt related to the Better Jacksonville Plan, the massive building campaign initiated by former Mayor John Delaney — and repurpose it to begin paying off the city's pension debt in 2031. Until then, the city is essentially under-paying into the pension fund, a plan that can theoretically work as long as future sales tax revenue continues growing.

City officials knew this new plan would cause the already troubled Police and Fire Pension Fund's financial health to deteriorate, but the short-term "savings" in the form of lower city payments have propped up Curry's administration, which has been able to engineer large infrastructure budgets in recent years.

Still, the faltering fund is requiring ever-larger payments from the city that even Curry's changes can't fully stem. The $171 million due next year is the highest minimum contribution the city has ever been required to make. That amount could go up or down some as the draft report is finalized, though it typically changes little.

This was a massive gamble with consequences that will fall on future mayors and taxpayers if Curry's plan flops.

Although the plan creates breathing room in the city's general fund, the portion of the budget paid for with property taxes that pays for quality-of-life services, Curry's "solution" is not free: a generation of taxpayers who had nothing to do with the exploding pension debt will be paying it off for decades to come — and paying a premium so city officials today can reap the benefit. It has also taken a half-penny tax off the table that could have instead been used for future infrastructure needs, of which the city has plenty.

The third leg of Curry's plan ended pensions for all city employees, including police and firefighters, and replaced it with an expensive 401(k)-style retirement plan, something Curry used as a major selling point when pushing his plan on voters. But public-safety officials have long believed turning the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue into some of the only departments in the country without pensions would ultimately create a recruitment and retention problem — something, a few years in, some of them believe they are now beginning to see.

This is a topic on the minds of mayoral candidates. In an interview with my colleague, David Bauerlein, earlier this week, JAX Chamber president and candidate Daniel Davis wouldn't rule out bringing back pensions to help recruit police candidates.

"All the options are on the table, in my opinion, to make sure that we have the best and brightest serving our citizens," Davis said. "I want to make sure that if my family is in trouble or anybody else’s family is in trouble that we have the absolute best here – not that they are being trained here and they go somewhere else because the benefits are better somewhere else, but that we have the absolute best here in Jacksonville.”

Placing city employees, or even a portion of employees, like public safety workers, into a new pension plan or rolling them into the Florida Retirement System would have its own set of complications. But the option might be politically appealing to candidates trying to court police officers and firefighters, who grudgingly backed Curry's plan in 2016, some with the notion they'd get a second bite at the apple with a new mayor.

Although it's the largest and poorest funded, the police and fire pension fund is not the city's only large retirement obligation. The unfunded liability in the general employees pension plan was projected to be about $1.37 billion this year, although it's generally in better overall financial health.

https://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=36694.210;last_msg=521775

[vicupstate]

^ All noted and "thanks for the memories."   

Based on my recall, I have to at least take exception on the Courthouse.  There were still multiple options to choose from including going vertical and Peyton made the choice to build what we have.  Just because there were even worse options doesn't excuse not picking the best.  The Feds, only a few years earlier, built a building at least half the size and to the highest security standards for $80 million.  Given it was a recession at the time, I don't recall huge inflation in construction costs.  If it was over budget, the City did a poor job of estimating a realistic cost and/or added on a lot of change orders and upgrades (to appease spoiled judges, which I recall happened).

The above is a pattern for City projects.  They all seem to run way over estimates sold to taxpayers when seeking approval.  This includes the stadium and Osborn convention center among many. Let's face it, the City is a terrible manager of real estate, development and construction, bar none.

As far as the courthouse there was a design competition. Four or five firms submitted plans for it, and from those entries a winner was chosen. Between the time of BJP approval (in 2000), and 2006 or 2007 when the they were ready to go vertical, there had indeed been a substantial amount of construction inflation. Peyton scrapped the 'chosen' design for what he see today. There may have been other design options at that time, but if there were they were NOT made public. Because they were started pretty soon after BJP approval, the Arena and ballpark DID come in on budget. Ideally, COJ should have been designing/building the courthouse in tandem with those projects and thus before the considerable inflation of the mid-2000's.  The economy was humming and that drove up construction prices.   

As far as going more vertical, to shrink the footprint, that would not have resulted in monetary savings, as the higher you go, the higher the construction costs.  The city already owed the land, and as I said, it was a big footprint from the start. 

[Steve]

^ All noted and "thanks for the memories."   

Based on my recall, I have to at least take exception on the Courthouse.  There were still multiple options to choose from including going vertical and Peyton made the choice to build what we have.  Just because there were even worse options doesn't excuse not picking the best.  The Feds, only a few years earlier, built a building at least half the size and to the highest security standards for $80 million.  Given it was a recession at the time, I don't recall huge inflation in construction costs.  If it was over budget, the City did a poor job of estimating a realistic cost and/or added on a lot of change orders and upgrades (to appease spoiled judges, which I recall happened).

The above is a pattern for City projects.  They all seem to run way over estimates sold to taxpayers when seeking approval.  This includes the stadium and Osborn convention center among many. Let's face it, the City is a terrible manager of real estate, development and construction, bar none.

As far as the courthouse there was a design competition. Four or five firms submitted plans for it, and from those entries a winner was chosen. Between the time of BJP approval (in 2000), and 2006 or 2007 when the they were ready to go vertical, there had indeed been a substantial amount of construction inflation. Peyton scrapped the 'chosen' design for what he see today. There may have been other design options at that time, but if there were they were NOT made public. Because they were started pretty soon after BJP approval, the Arena and ballpark DID come in on budget. Ideally, COJ should have been designing/building the courthouse in tandem with those projects and thus before the considerable inflation of the mid-2000's.  The economy was humming and that drove up construction prices.   

As far as going more vertical, to shrink the footprint, that would not have resulted in monetary savings, as the higher you go, the higher the construction costs.  The city already owed the land, and as I said, it was a big footprint from the start. 

I think you can debate the courthouse either way. Construction costs increases definitely were not his fault. Additionally, one giant oversight was that the original design picked (from Cannon Designs) as well as what we had today sat squarely on Clay Street, which to no one's knowledge on the committee was AT&T's central trunk line street downtown, requiring the city to spend Millions to close the Right of Way since AT&T had to move a ton of wires.

That said, he took forever on this. It reminded me of a deer in the headlights - if the deer went almost any direction it would be better than doing nothing, which he did for a long time.

[jaxlongtimer]

Let's do some math...

Per Wikipedia articles below:  The Feds built their 492,000 sf building for $84 million or $170/sf in 2002.  Duval County built its 800,000 sf courthouse for $350 million (or more as I recall) at $437.50/sf in 2008.  That is a 157% increase in construction costs in less than 10 years during overall low inflation.  Plus, the larger building should yield a lower cost per sf due to efficiencies of construction overhead. Thus, no way this amount of increase makes sense to me.

And, if Duval built on one block vertically, they wouldn't have had to close so many streets and kill multiple city blocks that the City could have developed/sold off for millions in revenue while improving Downtown vitality.

Per below, Peyton essentially rebooted the design process so he had the opportunity to totally change direction in my opinion. It would have been cheaper to write off the infrastructure dollars already spent rather than spending "a dollar to save a dime" by pushing forward with the multiblock design.  And, with a courthouse, I am not sure that vertical automatically cost more or much more vs. horizontal due to what has to be higher security costs for a horizontal building 2 blocks long plus another block of valuable real estate and closing off/relocating two streets (Messing with Monroe after the City designated it just a few years earlier as the main I-95 gateway to Downtown just adds to the insanity of the Courthouse design.)

The courthouse was completed in late 2002 at a cost of $84 million and opened in early 2003. It replaced the old former courthouse, which was built in 1933 and had many indoor air quality problems, including illness-inducing mold and mildew.[4]

The new courthouse comprises 492,000 square feet (45,700 m2) over 14 floors, with a secure parking facility in the basement. It was named after John Milton Bryan Simpson, a federal judge who served in several positions in Florida, after passage of an act of Congress introduced by then U.S. Senator Bill Nelson. The courthouse was officially dedicated on August 11, 2008.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Simpson_United_States_Courthouse

....The 2000 Census counted over three-quarters of a million people in Duval County, an increase of 67% since the prior courthouse opened. The Bay Street facility had been overcrowded for many years and additional space was desperately needed. State law required the local government to construct a new facility. Mayor John Delaney proposed the Better Jacksonville Plan, a $2.25 billion package of projects, including a new courthouse.[3] The referendum on the Better Jacksonville Plan passed on September 5, 2000, and planning for the courthouse commenced. Costs were estimated at $190 million, with another $20 million built into the budget for contingency. Construction was awarded to Cannon Design.

In 2003 Delaney left office and was succeeded by John Peyton. Construction continued under Cannon, but budget and size estimates fluctuated. Peyton stopped work on the courthouse complex on October 28, 2004, and fired Cannon and construction managers Skanska Dynamic Partners.[4] At the time, the project had not broken ground, but project design, property acquisition, site work and utility relocation had been completed, at a cost of $64.3 million. Peyton's office cited rising construction costs as part of the reason for the budget deficit.[5]

Peyton decided to throw out Cannon's original designs, including completed work, and proposed a new plan. The Jacksonville City Council approved increasing the courthouse budget to $263.5 million in 2006. The project was re-bid, and the team of Perry-McCall Construction and The Auchter Company were initially awarded the contract. When it was discovered that the Auchter Company had financial troubles, the contract was withdrawn. In an attempt to retain the contract, Perry-McCall and Auchter merged to form a new company, but Jacksonville's General Counsel rejected their plan because the new company had not bid on the project.[6]

Second place bidder, Turner Construction Company, which partnered with Technical Construction Services Group and KBJ Architects, was given an opportunity to negotiate a contract with the city in July 2007, by approval of the Competitive Sealed Proposal Evaluation Committee.[6] On November 16, 2007, the Courthouse Architectural Review Committee (CARC) convened to review the new options under consideration by the administration and voted 4-1 to pursue the mayor's recommendation to build one 800,000 square foot facility on the existing LaVilla site using the design from KBJ Architects. Turner Construction was chosen as contractor. Turner Construction is also the company that built VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville.

Based on that recommendation and after intensive study, the Jacksonville City Council approved a $350 million county courthouse complex in April, 2008 that was supported by Mayor Peyton and Chief Circuit Judge Donald Moran. The council also agreed that any proceeds from the sale of the current riverfront courthouse and the City Hall annex be used to pay for the increased costs of the new courthouse construction.[7][8]

Financial history of the new courthouse
Original 2000 BJP budget   $190,000,000   
“vertical contingency”   $ 21,000,000   added by John Delaney
Total BJP funding   $211,000,000
** New Funding **      
Court Facilities Trust Fund:   $ 811,000   
Court Documents Facility:   $ 3,397,000   
Traffic Fine Surcharge:   $ 48,292,000   
2nd Approved Budget:   $263,500,000   (2004-1339)
** AdditionalFunding **      
COJ Capital Projects:   $ 86,500,000
TOTAL BUDGET APPROVED^:   $350,000,000   (2008-1111)
^$64.3 million already spent to-date for land acquisition, utility relocation and previous design efforts [9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duval_County_Courthouse

[thelakelander]

Jacksonville City Council president gets request to investigate mayoral candidate Cumber

City Council member Nick Howland wants City Council to investigate the involvement of council member LeAnna Cumber's husband in the attempted sale of JEA and also look into the "omission of this information" in a disclosure statement she gave City Council.

City Council President Terrance Freeman did not immediately respond to Howland's request for an investigation of Cumber, who is running for mayor.

Cumber's husband, Husein, assisted a private equity firm when it pulled together a consortium of companies called JEA Public Power Partners that offered to pay a multibillion dollar concession fee for the right to manage JEA, a form of privatization that would have kept JEA under the city's ownership.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2023/01/31/jacksonville-city-council-asked-to-investigate-mayor-candidate/69857547007/

[jaxlongtimer]

Jacksonville City Council president gets request to investigate mayoral candidate Cumber

City Council member Nick Howland wants City Council to investigate the involvement of council member LeAnna Cumber's husband in the attempted sale of JEA and also look into the "omission of this information" in a disclosure statement she gave City Council.

City Council President Terrance Freeman did not immediately respond to Howland's request for an investigation of Cumber, who is running for mayor.

Cumber's husband, Husein, assisted a private equity firm when it pulled together a consortium of companies called JEA Public Power Partners that offered to pay a multibillion dollar concession fee for the right to manage JEA, a form of privatization that would have kept JEA under the city's ownership.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2023/01/31/jacksonville-city-council-asked-to-investigate-mayor-candidate/69857547007/

There is more to this move than meets the eye.  First, Howland is supporting Daniel Davis and they both share Tim Baker as their campaign manager who plays nasty above and beyond in managing campaigns.  Second, according to the Cumber team, including the prior City General Council who is supporting Cumber, the Council doesn't have standing to investigate family members now nor did it have the power then to compel members to make disclosures on this subject or hold them accountable.  Disclosure was entirely voluntary.  Further, Cumber's team says the husband received no compensation for his advice and was cooperating with the FBI's investigation at the time.  Cumber claims there was both public and private concern about compromising the FBI's efforts by disclosing too much before the Council.  Not saying she handled it the best way but this is much ado about nothing and is driven by Cumber's attacks on Davis re: his role in privatizing JEA.

Like everything in politics, there is always more to the story than meets the eye.

Meanwhile, Donna Deegan and others are enjoying watching Cumber and Davis attacking each other relentlessly and spending lots of their dollars to do so  .

[vicupstate]

So what is the story on Deegan?  I know she was a TV anchor or reporter but that is about it.  Has she got the chops to be Mayor?

[jaxlongtimer]

So what is the story on Deegan?  I know she was a TV anchor or reporter but that is about it.  Has she got the chops to be Mayor?

Deegan was a reporter and anchor locally for many years and covered City Hall for much of that.  She also has created and overseen the "Donna Race for the Cure" with thousands of runners from around the country for many years.  Between those things, she has much knowledge about the community and organizing along with name recognition that, for now, far exceeds that of all the other mayoral candidates.  Cumber and Davis will be spending millions of their campaign dollars just to ramp up their name to a level approaching hers.

Additionally, Deegan ran a very good campaign for Congress against incumbent John Rutherford in a very red district and managed to pull about 40%, as I recall, far exceeding expectations.  She clobbered Rutherford in her televised debate with him and comes across, based on my observations of her presentations, as having an excellent grasp of local issues, a dynamic vision and the ability to clearly articulate her positions while connecting with the electorate (likely honed by her on-air career).  In this campaign, I see much more "positive" energy from her so far and have heard she has a robust ground game.  She should have much appeal to younger people, women, the disenfranchised and moderates of both parties looking for a new day in Jacksonville.  Davis, perceived as Curry 2.0 by many in the know, and Cumber's embrace of the far right may also push many voters toward a more reasonable Deegan.

She doesn't carry the political baggage of other candidates who have been in City government but has one personal issue that, if she makes the runoff, will likely be brought up by the likes of Tim Baker.  That is her separation from her sports anchor husband and subsequent marriage to the weatherman.  While this may be titillating for some gossipers, it doesn't mean much to me with respect to running City government.  My guess is most all the candidates have some personal issue in their history and it just comes down to who has the money to blow up such issues.

If Cumber and Davis keep pounding on each other and split their base, I think Deegan has a very good chance of being in the runoff.  If so, I then expect the race to be about who can convince us that they can best move us into a better future than our past.

[fsu813]

If Cumber and Davis keep pounding on each other and split their base, I think Deegan has a very good chance of being in the runoff.  If so, I then expect the race to be about who can convince us that they can best move us into a better future than our past.

Spoiler: she'll make the run off, easily. In fact, she'll get the most votes of any candidate in March. Considering she has no real primary opponent, it'd be political malpractice not to.

March will be something like:

Deegan 28%
Davis 22%
Cumber 18%
Gibson 12%
Ferraro 10%
Etc

Then the R v D campaign ensues, and the R becomes the favorite.

[jaxlongtimer]

If Cumber and Davis keep pounding on each other and split their base, I think Deegan has a very good chance of being in the runoff.  If so, I then expect the race to be about who can convince us that they can best move us into a better future than our past.

Spoiler: she'll make the run off, easily. In fact, she'll get the most votes of any candidate in March. Considering she has no real primary opponent, it'd be political malpractice not to.

March will be something like:

Deegan 28%
Davis 22%
Cumber 18%
Gibson 12%
Ferraro 10%
Etc

Then the R v D campaign ensues, and the R becomes the favorite.

I think Deegan may have a better chance against Davis than Cumber if it comes down to your scenario.  Cumber will be harder to pin down with our past history vs. Davis, who can be painted as an extension of unpopular Curry.  Cumber is painting herself as an "anti-establishment" outsider even though she spent a good bit of her time on Council in Curry's camp before splitting off, a convenient turn if she expected Davis to be her main competition.  Also, Cumber could siphon off some of Deegan's votes from women.  A large vulnerability for her is how much out-of-town money she has raised from the world of Trump.  I don't know if self-described "conservative" Davis will be able to make that a huge issue in the primary but Deegan could in a runoff.

I am not sure Cumber can't top Davis.  He has more money but he seems to have a severe identity problem with the general public.  Cumber has grabbed more big headlines in the last 2 years than he has and staked out some firm positions.  Davis seems to have trouble outlining what he stands for.  I think sometimes he just comes across more as a vapid "pretty boy" than a person of substance.  I wonder also how comfortable he is with Baker's divisive "burn down the city" style of campaigning which is sure to turn off some moderate establishment types that want the City to be more unified.

Will also be interesting to see if DeSantis jumps in on the runoff.  At a minimum, that could polarize the election beyond normal.  If DeSantis jumps in on the primary, I wonder who he would get behind and if it would have much impact, one way or the other.

No matter what, in a runoff, it will be imperative for Deegan to find a way to juice turnout by Democrats to offset the inevitable auto votes for an "R" in this town.  This will also be a good test of just how purple to blue Duval might becoming.