Legacy candidate Reggie Gaffney Jr. instant cash king in Jax City Council D7 race

Like father, like son? Image via Reggie Gaffney campaign.

Just call Reggie Gaffney Jr. a chip off the old block.

Gaffney Jr. is making a 2023 bid for the Jacksonville City Council seat held by his term-limited father, Reggie Gaffney Sr. In his first month as an active candidate, the younger Gaffney is proving very capable of carrying on the family tradition.

In February, the Democrat’s debut fundraising report showed him raising $33,530, a launch number adding up to more than the combined haul from all other candidates in the race. A lot of that was friends-and-family money from the Gaffney family network. However, the kinds of citywide donors who don’t always back Democrats also played, including the Jacksonville Kennel Club and related interests, as well as John Baker.

Gaffney has seven opponents: five Democrats, a Republican, and an NPA candidate. He seems well-situated given issues faced by opponents’ campaigns.

The second-leading fundraiser, Democrat Nahshon Nicks, has run before. Nicks has raised more than $15,000 through four months as a candidate, and has spent at least $14,000 thus far. He raised $4,993 in February but spent more than $5,600 of it, with a recurrent pattern of seemingly ancillary expenses like a DJ, twice-a-week campaign meals, and fill ups at the gas station.

Nicks wasn’t the only District 7 candidate with a significant burn rate a year before the First Election in March 2023. Former Neighborhoods Department interim director Kimberly Scott has less than $900 left of the nearly $6,000 raised during her campaign thus far. Scott, also a Democrat, raised $125 in February.

Democrats Chaussee Gibson, Solomon Olodape and Kim Pryor have yet to raise money. Likewise, NPA candidate Timothy Johnson has yet to report fundraising.

Charles Barr, the sole Republican in the field, actually has the second-best cash on hand position behind Gaffney Jr. He has nearly $11,000 cash on hand, raising more than $3,700 in February.

District 7 is one of Jacksonville’s four minority-access City Council seats, and the new map under consideration by the Council will retain that reliability in performance. The district will be 61% Black.

The district also is all but guaranteed to elect Democrats going forward, with 71% of its voters choosing Joe Biden in the November 2020 Presidential election.

The district also has elected a Gaffney in every election since 2007. Johnny Gaffney preceded Reggie Sr. in the seat.

A crowded field may mean that no candidate emerges from the First Election in March. If that is the case, then the top two finishers would have a runoff in May’s General Election.