Donna Deegan to become the next mayor of Jacksonville
Donna Deegan celebrated her win Tuesday night at Estrella Cocina in Downtown Jacksonville surrounded by supporters and family.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — First Coast News has called the Jacksonville mayoral race in favor of Donna Deegan.
She celebrated her win Tuesday night at Estrella Cocina in Downtown Jacksonville surrounded by supporters and family.
"We made history tonight, it's a brand-new day for Jackonville, Florida" said Deegan during her acceptance speech. "You know what the best part is? Love won today."
Deegan will become the first woman mayor in Jacksonville history.
She continued, "As much as I wanted to win this race for the people of Jacksonville, I wanted love to win. I made a decision when I got into this race that no matter what happened, no matter what the landscape looked like, we were going to lead with love over fear, we would not go with division, we would go with unity..."
Deegan, a Democrat, narrowly beat out Republican opponent Daniel Davis with roughly 8,000 votes. She said during her acceptance speech that Davis called to tell her congratulations on a hard fought race following the announcement she had won.
Deegan was spotted running around to different polling locations all day prior to the closing of polls, encouraging people to vote and make their voices heard.
She's used to being in the public eye as a former television news anchor and breast cancer awareness advocate. Every year, The Donna Foundation hosts a Mother's Day run to fundraise for the illness.
Crime has been a hot topic during this race – a poll by The University of North Florida showed a majority of Jacksonville voters feel it’s the biggest issue the city is facing. Deegan says she will put more police officers on the street but thinks law enforcement should have a better relationship with the public.
“There’s so many great intervention and prevention programs that if we actually spent some money on, we could keep some of these kids from getting into a life of crime so I think you need the enforcement side you got to put the bad guys in jail and at the same time we got to get to these kids before they get into violent situations," Deegan previously said.
Source: FirstCoastNews.com WTLV-WJXX
