{"id":375373,"date":"2026-08-19T06:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375373\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T06:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:38:12","slug":"democrats-flip-gop-jacksonville-city-council-seat-in-special-election-get-boost-ahead-of-2027-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375373\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats flip GOP Jacksonville City Council seat in Special Election, get boost ahead of 2027 elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrats spent more than half a million dollars<\/a> to flip a Republican seat on the Jacksonville City Council in a Special Election for a truncated term, and on Tuesday they pulled it off in a potential preview of next year\u2019s countywide elections.<\/p>\n

With all votes counted, Democrat Mon\u00e9 Holder, the Chief Advocacy and Political Officer at\u00a0Florida Rising<\/a> and Chair of the city\u2019s Planning Commission, got 51% against Republican Deborah Wesley<\/a> and Libertarian\u00a0Addison Patrick.<\/p>\n

Mayor\u00a0Donna Deegan, a Democrat running for re-election, hailed Holder\u2019s win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to work with Mon\u00e9 and keep Jacksonville\u2019s momentum going. She took the time to sit down with me to talk about affordability and those kitchen table issues so important to our community \u2013 and that\u2019s the message she carried throughout her campaign. She\u2019ll be a voice for every person and a trusted partner on the City Council.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Holder got more than half the vote, she will replace City Councilman Terrance Freeman immediately after the election is certified, giving Democrats six of the 19 seats on the panel while Freeman runs to replace Wyman Duggan in the House.<\/p>\n

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

The story going into Election Day was one of Republican underperformance in Duval County. On Sunday, which was the final day of early voting, Democrats had cast a majority of votes with a double-digit advantage over Republicans. Republican insiders blamed Duval GOP Chair Charles Barr\u00a0and reminisced about the party\u2019s performance when Rep.\u00a0Dean Black chaired the party throughout the early voting period.<\/p>\n

Republicans made up ground on Election Day. By mid-morning, Democrats lost their majority. By the last hours of voting, Republicans scored a slight plurality. But crossover vote went against the local GOP as it did in 2023\u2019s mayoral race.<\/p>\n

Two factors may have driven the vote split.<\/p>\n

The first was the aforementioned cash lead for Holder. While Wesley, a retired Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office commander endorsed by more than half of the City Council, raised roughly $200,000 between her campaign account and her political committee, Holder dominated the battle for the airwaves.<\/p>\n

The second was a persistent challenge to Wesley\u2019s residency that Republicans ripped as \u201clawfare.\u201d The contention was that Wesley did not live in at-large Group 1, given that she owned a home outside the lines, and that an apartment rented for filing was a dummy address. Lawsuits were dismissed, but the narrative was established.<\/p>\n

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

Holder will have to run again in regular countywide elections in 2027. But winning the at-large race is significant. The last at-large Democrat was the deceased\u00a0Tommy Hazouri.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrats spent more than half a million dollars to flip a Republican seat on the Jacksonville City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[140161,122422,7888,116,4040,151334,118,117,43711,5904,13771],"class_list":["post-375373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-addison-patrick","tag-deborah-wesley","tag-florida-rising","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-city-council","tag-jacksonville-city-council-at-large-group-1","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-mone-holder","tag-terrance-freeman","tag-wyman-duggan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375373","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=375373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}