Duval GOP Chair Charles "Scooter" Barr speaks at a party meeting in July 2026. | Duval GOP via Facebook
Published on August 30, 2026 at 2:12 pm
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One rule of Jacksonville politics: At all times, at least one local party must be in distress of some type or another. It’s literally in the fine print of the City Charter and the language was part of the referendum that created consolidation.
Just kidding, of course.
But seriously: Jacksonville Republicans will have a contested chair election in the next few months after Election Day and before the mayoral race.
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This may be the worst-kept secret in local politics that doesn’t involve allegations of moral turpitude.
Strong rumors hold that a certain Young Republican will try to bring new blood to party leadership, and that case will be strengthened by the subpar performance of Republican candidate Deborah Wesley in this month’s special election for a City Council at-large seat.
The seat will be up for grabs again in the general election, of course. But just like in 2023, when Republicans won the turnout war but couldn’t win the mayoral election, this citywide loss stings.
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Headed into August’s election, some Republicans who are less than fond of local GOP Chair Scooter Barr suggested that the party wasn’t working hard enough to get its voters out.
Others said the party was working in races it shouldn’t, including a school board race where a “vendor” was blamed for an errant text message supporting Clarence James.
At the end of it all, the circular firing squad was doing its thing, and the Duval GOP came forth with a “message of unity.”
“What we cannot afford is personal attacks or infighting that weakens our party headed into the general election. We need Republican unity, not Republican division. We have already seen how internal fighting hurts our efforts,” the message reads in part.
Replies were turned off on the post, meaning it was a one-way ticket to Quote Tweet City. By and large, most of those QTs were, shall we say, critical.
And that’s as it should be after leadership let down the party faithful and shirked accountability.
Republicans have controlled city government for most of this century. Democrat Alvin Brown got elected mayor after Republican Mike Hogan thought he’d coast to victory back in 2011, but that mayoralty lasted one term. After eight years of Republican Lenny Curry, Democrat Donna Deegan overcame resource disadvantages and defeated Daniel Davis, a loss that Republicans still rue.
It’s created some downstream pressures. The John Peyton/Daniel Davis wing is fine enough with the status quo. Lots of donors, especially those with business with the city, won’t bet against the mayor. And the only credible Republican candidate looking at the race is House Speaker Wyman Duggan, who has a little more than a million dollars in his political committee and the connections to raise more.
But as Republicans saw this month, Democratic money folks are motivated – recall that philanthropist Steve Pajcic gave Democrat Mone’ Holder’s political committee more than half a million dollars ahead of the August election. And that was just to ensure a 13-6 GOP advantage on City Council during next month’s budget vote as opposed to the 14-5 one.
There are many who say that Republicans should accept the “inevitable” and wait until 2031 to make a run for the mayor’s office. Of course, some folks said that in 2015, when Alvin Brown was still popular even though his triangulation on expanding the Human Rights Ordinance to include LGBTQ+ people frustrated the left.
I don’t see Duggan waiting. He will have access to the best possible consultants, and likely they won’t include the architects of Davis’ 2023 disaster. And besides, if he did wait until 2031, there would be a crowded field of credible candidates — and likely a Democratic coalescence around someone like City Councilman Jimmy Peluso or Property Appraiser Joyce Morgan.
But the current Republican Party leadership is less than reliable. A chair who has never won an election may be many things, but an architect of a political machine is not one of them.
Expect for Republicans to figure this one out over the next few months. If not, it will be four more years of Deegan and a hope that some second-term scandal currently not on the horizon provides stimulus for the opposition next decade.
