Voters in Jacksonville, Florida’s largest city, have made history by electing its first-ever female mayor.

Democrat Donna Deegan, a former local television anchor and a three-time cancer survivor, defeated her opponent, Republican Daniel Davis, with about 52% of the vote in Tuesday’s runoff election, according to preliminary results.

“Love won tonight, and we made history,” the Jacksonville native said in a statement shared on social media.

“We have a new day in Jacksonville because people chose unity over division — creating a broad coalition of people across the political spectrum that want a unified city,” she added.

Deegan’s opponent, a former city council member and state representative who was endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, conceded Tuesday night promising to “do everything [he] can to make sure Mayor-elect Deegan is successful in making Jacksonville the best Jacksonville it can be.”

Deegan will replace Republican Lenny Curry, whose second term as mayor ends in July 2023. Curry, a former Florida GOP chairman, was ineligible to run again due to term limits.

Her victory was celebrated across the country. Some pundits celebrated Tuesday’s results as a “brutal setback” for DeSantis and the state’s Republican party; and a “massive upset” that could be a signal that “even Florida is finally getting sick of DeSantis and the Republicans.”

“The voters of Jacksonville, Florida, showed the nation that banning books and trying to erase the history of the black and LGBTQ communities won’t work for Ron DeSantis,” New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, the first openly gay Afro-Latinx man elected to Congress, wrote on Twitter late on Tuesday.

Jacksonville, a city of 950,000 located on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida, has elected Republican mayors for 26 out of the past 30 years, according to the Palmer Report.

With News Wire Services

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