Jacksonville city council member announces mayoral challenge; other members respond
Last Friday, Jacksonville City Councilwoman Anna Brosche (R) announced her campaign to challenge Mayor Lenny Curry (R) in the city's 2019 mayoral election. She said the mayor did not do enough to address crime and that the city's taxpayers were being hurt by what she called a lack of transparency in the mayor's office.
That same day, five members of the city council released a joint statement in support of Curry. Council President Aaron Bowman, Tommy Hazouri, Sam Newby, Bill Gulliford, and Lori N. Boyer criticized Brosche for "spending months sewing [sic] division and conflict in City Council" and offered an endorsement for Curry.
There are 19 members of the city council, with a current partisan balance of 12 Republicans and seven Democrats.
Curry and Brosche will compete along with Jimmy Hill (R), Omega Allen (Independent), and two write-in candidates in the general election on March 19. If no candidate wins a majority in that election, a runoff election will be held on May 14. Six Florida cities rank among the largest 100 by population in the United States, and all of them are holding elections this year.
Curry first won election in 2015, defeating then-Mayor Alvin Brown (D). Jacksonville is the largest city in Florida by population and the 13th-largest in the United States. It is the second-largest city in the United States to have a Republican mayor, behind San Diego. In total, Democrats hold 60 of the 100 mayorships, while Republicans hold 28, Independents seven, there are four mayors of unknown political affiliation, and one seat is vacant.
Twenty-six of the 100 largest cities by population will be holding mayoral elections in 2019. Of those, five (Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Antonio, and Dallas) are among the 10 largest cities. Democrats currently hold the mayor's office in 18 of the cities with elections this year, while Republicans and independents hold four each.
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