A.G. Gancarski
The hotly contested seven-way Jacksonville Sheriff’s Race is down to two candidates now: Democrat Ken Jefferson, who emerged with 37% of the vote, and Republican Mike Williams, the endorsed candidate of Sheriff John Rutherford, who finished in second place with 22% of the vote.
The drama of the election was whether Williams or Jimmy Holderfield, the preferred candidate of the Fraternal Order of Police, would emerge from the runoff. The campaign in recent weeks between Williams and Holderfield had some interesting moments, including this sequence of exchanges from a candidate forum a couple of weeks back:
The most heated portion of the forum was the section where candidates asked each other questions. This revealed real tensions among the field of candidates that haven’t been exposed in early stage advertising, but the most noteworthy part was when Williams brought up Holderfield serving as a Union leader, asking him if he could make tough decisions.
Williams served it up. Holderfield knocked it out of the park.
“Mike, that sounds like a question that John Rutherford would ask me himself,” he said to cheers from the crowd, before itemizing that he had fought for “raises and benefits for you and your father both.”
Holderfield came back with a question for Williams on Jacksonville’s controversial red light cameras program, to which Williams said that the program had gone too far. Holderfield’s rebuttal was devastating, saying that Williams had a “good response”, since he’d basically said the same thing three months ago.
Though Holderfield won the battles at the forums, Williams won the war. This suits many local Republicans that I talked to just fine. They believe that there is an essential synergy between the messaging of Williams and Lenny Curry.
This synergy exists on issues (such as the restoration of force levels that were cut during Alvin Brown’s first term, and restoration of Jacksonville Journey programs, even as the Mayor’s office claims that those programs still exist, but under different nomenclature). Perhaps more importantly, as one Republican insider puts it, there is a symbolic synergy between the Republican runoff candidates for Mayor and Sheriff as well: both men are “young, dynamic candidates.”
Of course, Williams’ emergence comes at the expense of Holderfield, and when I spoke to him Wednesday afternoon, the candidate was understandably “disappointed.”
I asked him what the difference in the race was. Holderfield said that Williams had a “hardworking team [and] more clearly articulated a message that appealed to voters.”
I then asked him about an email that had been circulated to media from an unknown source in the last days of the race, that purported to contain alleged conversations recorded from inmates at the Duval County Jail, who allegedly were swept up in the Allied Veterans sting a couple of years back. The conversations, which have not been authenticated, involve alleged recently arrested suspects telling their significant others to call Holderfield to offer some assistance.
The email seemed to epitomize 11th hour campaign dirt, though no one knows where it came from or why; I asked Holderfield about it. To his credit, he answered.
“I had nothing to do with Allied Veterans,” said Holderfield, who was aware of the “hurtful and dirty” smear attempt. “I don’t know if those recordings are authentic,” he emphasized.
The logical question to ask a candidate who doesn’t make a runoff was next: are you endorsing?
“My mindset’s not on the runoff,” said Holderfield. “I’m not in a position right now to endorse.”
The remaining two candidates, Jefferson and Williams, offer what Sheriff Rutherford told me last night are “stark differences.”
Williams has supervised 95% of JSO officers and has been instrumental in directing the Sheriff’s Office’s $400M budget, which Rutherford and other Republicans point to as a strong recommendation for his candidacy.
Jefferson, who ran four years ago and lost to Rutherford, is best known for being the JSO Public Information Officer, then moving on to become a crime analyst for WJXT-TV.
Williams’ rhetoric, as stated, aligns closely with the Curry/Rutherford messaging on public safety. This is in contrast to the rhetoric of Jefferson, which includes lurid descriptions of a “lost generation” of youthful criminals, and “pools of blood in the streets” from the recent spate of violent crime, which Williams asserts as being attributable to the “drug trade.”
Though Jefferson handily outperformed Williams in the first election, the performance in the runoff has to be considered more of an open question at this point.
Another open question: given the disparities between the campaign rhetoric of Alvin Brown and Ken Jefferson, how effectively can the two Democrats work together on the campaign trail? No such questions emerge for the Republicans in the Mayoral and Sheriff’s races; their messaging is remarkably unified, casting blame toward the incumbent Mayor for not providing the Sheriff’s office sufficient resources in recent years.
