{"id":217055,"date":"2026-04-03T04:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217055\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T04:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T04:37:15","slug":"wyman-duggan-outlines-gop-strategy-to-make-donna-deegan-a-one-term-jacksonville-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217055\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyman Duggan outlines GOP strategy to make Donna Deegan a one-term Jacksonville Mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s less than a year until the First Election in Jacksonville\u2019s 2027 mayoral race, and a prominent local Republican is bullish on his party\u2019s chances to defeat Democratic incumbent Donna Deegan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During an interview with Republican Party of Florida Chair Evan Power, House Speaker Pro Tempore\u00a0Wyman Duggan<\/a> said mistakes that were made in 2023 \u2014 when Deegan defeated Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce CEO Daniel Davis<\/a> with the help of crossover Republican voters \u2014 won\u2019t be repeated.<\/p>\n

For starters, unlike three years ago in the race to replace term-limited\u00a0Lenny Curry<\/a>, Duggan says there will be one major candidate running, not the three well-known names that did then.<\/p>\n

\u201cI firmly believe that the people who are considering running next time have all agreed that there needs to be one consensus candidate,\u201d Duggan said.<\/p>\n

Names linked with the race, in addition to Duggan himself, include Duval County Supervisor of Elections\u00a0Jerry Holland<\/a> and City Council members\u00a0Rory Diamond and\u00a0Ron Salem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Duggan noted that Republicans are closing the historic voter registration gap with Democrats in the city and credits party discipline with the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing all of the things, the blocking and tackling, the ground game that is necessary, to win that registration battle. \u2026 In \u201923, when the current Democratic Mayor was elected, that differential was 23,000-plus Dem. Now it\u2019s 4,000,\u201d Duggan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that that election was decided with Republican votes, and we need to do the hard work of bringing those Republican voters home. And we\u2019ve done that with the last budget where the Council fought tooth and nail to get a property tax reduction, which the Mayor fought tooth and nail to not do, on top of a record budget. So you know, I think the bottom lines are pretty clearly drawn for that upcoming race. And we\u2019re going to do the hard work, no matter what it takes, no matter who the nominee is, to take that seat back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six marginal candidates have already filed to run for the office, including three Republicans, two independents and one write-in. But despite the names on the ballot, none of these are who Duggan would consider the leading nominee.<\/p>\n

For Deegan, the goal is to get more than half the vote in March 2027. If she fails to do that, the top two finishers advance to the General Election in May.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s less than a year until the First Election in Jacksonville\u2019s 2027 mayoral race, and a prominent local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34425,34426,51922,116,118,117,13771],"class_list":{"0":"post-217055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-2027-jacksonville-elections","9":"tag-2027-jacksonville-mayors-race","10":"tag-evan-power","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","13":"tag-jacksonville-news","14":"tag-wyman-duggan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}