Big money flowing in the Jacksonville sheriff’s race

The Jacksonville’s mayor’s race may be getting most of the ink in Northeast Florida right now, but another local contest heading into the March unitary election looks to be a lively one.

As outgoing Duval County Sheriff John Rutherford eyes a possible run for the Florida House, the well-funded candidates jockeying to replace him are posting eye-popping fundraising totals, with the seven men running passing the $1 million mark in total dollars raised so far.

Leading the pack, Jimmy Holderfield, a retired JSO director who is now north of $250K in contributions and has also snagged the local FOP endorsement.

Meanwhile, candidate Mike Williams is supported by Rutherford, is also a retired director and has pulled in more than $220,000.

Sgt. Jay Farhat has raised about the same amount, and is expected to draw support from Jacksonville’s large and influential Arab-American community.

Meanwhile, this week candidate Ken Jefferson announced he’s got the support of the Police Benevolent Association.  Jefferson used to serve as PIO for the agency, and is a well-known face and name on local TV. Raising $117,000, Jefferson, an African-American Democrat, has support from the city’s large black community.

But so does Tony Cummings, the other African-American Dem in the race. (He’s outraised Jefferson at $125K.)

Rounding out the field are Rob Schoonover ($106K), and Lonnie McDonald ($18K).

Meanwhile, Cummings and Jefferson had an interesting spat last week over campaign signs on the city’s Northside, apparently not believing the old adage that signs don’t vote.

So who will make it through the scrum in March? “Early money is probably on Mike Williams and Ken Jefferson to make it to the May runoff,” says UNF political science professor Mike Binder. Binder also runs the school’s Public Opinion Research Laboratory.

“But Farhat is a formidable candidate with a decent team behind him. And with seven candidates and practically no real name recognition countywide for any of them, it could really go in any direction.   With so many candidates 20 percent of the vote could get you into the runoff.  I don’t see any reason why any one of these candidates couldn’t get to that number,” said Binder.

Says former Jacksonville City Council pPesident Matt Carlucci, “This is going to be a tight race. There are a lot of good candidates running, and I would not discount the impact of the black Democratic vote in this.”

The winner will oversee a reduced police force in an era of budget cuts, despite concerns over Jacksonville’s on-and-off status as Florida’s murder capital. And despite the wishes of several recent mayors to make the position an appointed one, the city’s sheriff’s position remains an elected post.

With so many candidates vying to make the runoff, Binder says surprises are possible.

“There’s an interesting dichotomy here with the two black Democrats and the five white Republicans in the race,” he said.  “Though this is very unlikely, could you imagine if the two Dems split the D vote evenly and the Reps all split the R vote evenly, then you’d have two African-American Democrats in the runoff for sheriff in Republican Duval. Anything can happen here.”