Jacksonville voters will choose between Democratic incumbent Mayor Alvin Brown and Republican Lenny Curry in the May runoff election. With mail-in votes remaining to be counted, Brown took 42.9 percent of the vote and Curry took 38.4 percent in Tuesday's first unitary election.
Republican Bill Bishop and unaffiliated mayoral candidate Omega Allen were eliminated from the race, with 16.6 percent and 2.1 percent of the vote respectively.
At Curry’s election-night party, Duval County Republican Party Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Dickinson said he doesn’t know whether Bishop will support his fellow Republican in the general election.
“I don’t know that. I would hope that Bill does. I’ve known Bill for many years. He’s a good Republican. He’s a good conservative, and I would hope that Bill does deliver his support to Lenny Curry," Dickinson said.
Bishop would not say last night who he plans to endorse. Political analysts believe many liberals voted for Bishop because of his support for a human-rights ordinance inclusive of LGBT people. Those voters are seen as more likely to support Brown over Curry, who has campaigned as a far-right conservative.
Bishop did reflect on his own campaign, saying he believes he was able to transcend party politics.
"We ran a positive campaign. We didn’t get into dirty, nasty ads. People really appreciated that," he said, "And I’m really proud of what we did, I think we did a good job.”
Looking ahead to the May 19 election, Brown said, "It’s not about Democrats or Republicans or Independents. The only label I care about it Jacksonville, Florida. It’s about Jacksonville."
Curry told his supporters, “The runoff campaign starts right now. I will be up at the crack of dawn starting phase two of this so we are victorious in the weeks ahead.”
And Omega Allen told WJCT, "I gave Jacksonville a chance to govern itself without any influence from anybody other than the people of Jacksonville, and I thought Jacksonville was ready to make that turn and to go into greatness on our own merit, and apparently I was wrong."
