A.G. Gancarski
A Senator from Jacksonville was picked to lead the Democratic Caucus in 2026, but she will have to defeat a Primary opponent to get there.
40-year-old Francky Jeanty opened a campaign account last month to run in Senate District 5 against Democratic Sen. Tracie Davis, who was elected in 2022.
Jeanty, a graduate of Edward Waters University, is a published author of a motivational book, a self-described “educational consultant,” a former student recruiter for Keiser College, a former admissions counselor for EWU, and a former manager at a car rental dealership.
Now he seeks to make the leap from citizen to legislator, to remedy “things going in the wrong direction” for residents on the Eastside and Northside, with the hopes of “working together” across party lines to effect change in the Legislature.
“We can make a change. It’s not about Republicans, not about Democrats,” Jeanty said Monday in a phone interview, in which he said he is running to “help people.”
He doesn’t have support from current politicians, but says the “Haitian community” and other immigrant populations will mobilize to support him. As someone who came from Haiti in 2001, he believes he can connect with those diaspora groups and get them to vote in the August Primary.
Davis has lost one General Election in her political career: a 2015 battle for Duval County Supervisor of Elections. While she didn’t win a 2016 Primary for state House in the original count, she was chosen as the Democratic candidate after the original candidate withdrew due to personal legal issues.
As a Senate candidate, Davis had over 55% of the vote in 2022’s General Election over Republican Binod Kumar and write-in opponent Patrick Lee Cooper.
Ahead of that anticlimactic November win, she faced a tough Primary against Jacksonville City Council member Reggie Gaffney, but dominated fundraising during the Summer months ahead of a convincing win on the August ballot. She raised nearly a quarter million in hard money during the campaign and over $850,000 to the Together We Stand political committee.
Davis did not want to offer comment on her current challenger for this article.
