Nate Monroe: Donna Deegan, considering a run for Jacksonville mayor, forms political committee

COMMENTARY | Donna Deegan — the former Jacksonville news anchor, investigative reporter and breast cancer awareness advocate — formed a political committee July 1, state records show, a step that moves her closer to a campaign for Jacksonville mayor in 2023, which she said Wednesday she is "strongly considering."

Deegan has, in recent weeks, connected with Democratic donors, activists and elected officials across the city expressing an interest in the race. Although she acknowledged Wednesday interest in a mayoral run, she did not formally announce she was launching a campaign. She told me the new political committee, Donna for Duval, was a tool to help "lead Jacksonville in a new direction" and to "honor commitments of the past and realize the full potential of the future."

No Democrat has yet filed for the open seat (Mayor Lenny Curry is term-limited).

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Two Republican members of the City Council, Matt Carlucci and Al Ferraro, have already filed. JAX Chamber president Daniel Davis has not yet announced a campaign but has been actively fundraising for his own political committee, pulling in an astonishing $2 million-plus since the start of the year. He is widely anticipated to run.

Deegan would fill a role local Democrats have been in woefully short supply of the past several years: A credible candidate with the ability to raise money and compete in a citywide race.

And a recent survey from the University of North Florida demonstrated another valuable asset Deegan brings to the race: Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of name recognition right out of the gate. In a hypothetical matchup among seven candidates, Deegan won the most support, with 19 percent, in a May survey of 1,263 registered Duval County voters.

Duval shifting blue in some campaigns

Although Jacksonville has shifted increasingly blue in national and statewide campaigns, local Democrats have struggled mightily to win seats to city office. Republicans control a super majority on the City Council, have held the office of mayor the past two terms, and control every constitutional office, including sheriff.

Often, it has boiled down to a simple failure to launch: No Democrat filed to run against Mayor Lenny Curry in his 2019 re-election campaign.

Deegan's foray into politics began when she helped Andrew Gillum's gubernatorial campaign in 2018. Although Gillum narrowly lost the election, he comfortably won Duval County — one of the clearest signals at the time that changing demographics in this former Republican stronghold were also transforming its politics in major ways.

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Deegan followed that up with a campaign challenging U.S. Rep. John Rutherford's re-election last year. It was a virtually unwinnable race for Deegan: The 4th Congressional District covers some of the most Republican-heavy parts of Jacksonville (its companion district, the 5th, covers almost every Democratic stronghold in the city), where GOP voters outnumber Democrats by 20 percentage points.

Still, Deegan raised $1 million, and she was widely believed to have had a standout performance in the sole televised debate against Rutherford, whose own performance was confused and unfocused.

In her congressional race, Deegan ran on a platform that emphasized expanding access to health care and strengthening the Affordable Care Act, themes that echo the work she has done on behalf of the nonprofit she founded, the DONNA Foundation, and after her own high-profile fights against breast cancer.

It's likely she'd carry that theme, in some form, into the mayoral race. City Hall provides millions of dollars every year to UF Health Jacksonville, the city's hospital of last resort, and, as the pandemic demonstrated last year, plays a critical public health role in Duval County.

Davis, the chamber president, has a long history in Jacksonville politics, is well-liked by political insiders and will have the backing of almost the entire right-of-center political establishment. That support will have its strengths — particularly in the form of dollars and cents — but a potential set of liabilities he will have to navigate as well, especially if voters are looking for a change agent.

Deegan is also well-liked, better known and has lifelong Duval roots of her own (she is a member of the well-known Hazouri family). But she can also credibly claim to be a City Hall outsider and, potentially, play the role of the change candidate. And Jacksonville, it should be noted, has never elected a woman to be mayor. She could be well-positioned to generate enthusiasm in a portion of the electorate that has often sat out campaigns for local office.

In sum: Deegan is, at least on paper, one of the strongest candidates local Democrats could hope to see run.

And there is already momentum down the ballot for 2023 that could have an impact on the mayoral race: Lakesha Burton, an assistant chief in the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and a Democrat, is leading a historic campaign of her own as the first Black woman to run for sheriff, which is attracting big money from Democratic and Republican donors.

She is widely believed to be the frontrunner in that race, in which no Republican has yet filed.

Nate Monroe's City column appears every Thursday and Sunday.

nmonroe@jacksonville.com