A.G. Gancarski
Despite five open seats and one seat with an indicted incumbent, the action in Northeast Florida State House races largely is wrapped up in time for the Labor Day weekend, thanks to the realities of gerrymandering making the primaries the real show.
The only seat left with a competitive election: the one in HD 13 with said indicted incumbent, Reggie Fullwood, who won his primary and will face Mark Griffin, winner of the HD 13 GOP primary, in November.
Other winners: Cord Byrd in House District 11, Clay Yarborough in HD 12, Kim Daniels in the HD 14 Democratic primary, and Jason Fischer in the HD 16 GOP primary.
In House District 11, Cord Byrd beat Sheri Treadwell and Donnie Horner.
The margin: 44 percent for Byrd, 38 percent for Treadwell, and 13 percent for Horner.
This race was full of third-party mailers, energetic local endorsements, and a narrative that saw Horner out front early, before Treadwell closed the money gap with Horner, and trial lawyer Byrd got some key endorsements, including a last-minute branding as the Beaches candidate by former candidate and former Jacksonville Beach City Councilman Tom Taylor.
Byrd is virtually assured of election, as there is no Democratic opponent in the general election.
In House District 12, former Jacksonville City Councilman Clay Yarborough defeated Terrance Freeman 37 percent to 27 percent, with another former councilman (Don Redman) and former state legislator Stan Jordan at 13 and 12 percent respectively, and Mark MacLean at 11 percent.
This race, in which Yarborough was well ahead early, tightened up toward the end, with Freeman surging, while Redman and Jordan ran low-budget campaigns.
House District 12 saw outside money on Freeman’s behalf from a coalition of trial lawyers, gambling interests, and the Jax Chamber — along with at least one questionable mailer against Freeman that saw his skin made darker. The move was roundly decried by everyone from Richard Corcoran to Jax Chamber Republicans as egregious.
The pyrotechnics regarding mailers obscured a more quotidian reality: forum debates with these candidates saw little ideological daylight between the candidates, all of whom will represent an ideological continuum with incumbent Lake Ray.
Yarborough is slated to face write-in candidate Jerry Steckloff in the general election.
House District 13 is the only Northeast Florida seat that will see a competitive general election, with Democratic incumbent Reggie Fullwood surviving a crowded primary, defeating Tracie Davis 45 percent to 43 percent, with Lee Brown and J.R. Gaillot in single digits.
Davis, who had support from Sen. Audrey Gibson and Jacksonville City Councilman Garrett Dennis, is a longtime friend of Fullwood’s, who nonetheless decided to mount a primary challenge against the embattled incumbent.
Fullwood will face Pastor Mark Griffin, a Republican who won his primary 57 percent to 43 percent over financial planner Keith Walters.
Griffin has said that he’s supportive of Fullwood as the three-term incumbent deals with 14 federal counts related to using campaign funds for personal gain.
Meanwhile, Fullwood filed to dismiss 10 of those charges — related to wire fraud — given that the government’s case is predicated on someone having been defrauded by his use of funds, and no one has come forth to claim having been defrauded.
That filing, from Aug. 19, has not been addressed by the judge yet.
House District 14 sees former Jacksonville City Councilwoman Kim Daniels winning the nomination over trial lawyer Leslie Jean-Bart, 36 percent to 31 percent.
Also in this race: former state legislators Don Gaffney, who left after a mail fraud conviction in the 1980s, and Terry Fields, who was termed out eight years prior.
Fields had 19 percent; Gaffney, 12 percent.
Both men and their staid campaigns took a backseat to the ladies when it came to pre-election publicity.
The main drama in this race was between Daniels and Jean-Bart. Both women had been endorsed by Rep. Corrine Brown, an endorsement which led to campaign ops for both candidates squabbling in the Northwest Jacksonville neighborhood of Sherwood Forest. Daniels allegedly intimidated one Jean-Bart canvasser.
Jean-Bart ran a textbook campaign — heavy radio ads, mailers, and so on. And an endorsement from incumbent State Rep. Mia Jones.
But Daniels, an evangelical preacher known as the “demonbuster,” had the best feel for the grassroots. And endorsements from a diverse group of stakeholders ranging from the Fraternal Order of Police to gospel singers BeBe and CeCe Winans.
Daniels will now face Republican Chris Whitfield in the general election.
House District 16 ended up being a knockdown, drag-out donnybrook between a Republican warhorse from a different era in Jacksonville politics (Dick Kravitz) and a man half his age (former Duval County School Board member Jason Fischer).
Fischer won, 53 percent to 47 percent, with the big push being Election Day.
This primary had it all: push polls, fights over Kravitz’s NRA rating, Kravitz calling Marion Hammer a liar, and mailers against Fischer accusing him of being “pro-Islam” because he missed the school board meeting where the body approved a Common Core curriculum.
Kravitz was endorsed by State Rep. Charles McBurney, whom the NRA opposed for a judgeship, creating an interesting dynamic where old-school Republicans were opposed by one of the most influential groups in latter-day conservative politics.
We see how that worked out.
House District 19 saw Putnam County’s favorite son candidate, Bobby Payne, beat the two Clay County candidates: Katherine Van Zant — the wife of the incumbent — and former RPOF chair Leslie Dougher.
Payne had 42 percent of the vote, easily beating Van Zant with 32 percent and Dougher at 26 percent.
Van Zant raised more money than the other two candidates combined; however, a late-campaign news cycle dealing with a homestead exemption claim that media and Dougher found to be questionable, coupled with another family scandal (involving School Superintendent Charlie Van Zant‘s plagiarism allegations) hurt Mrs. Van Zant at the worst possible time.
