JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — COMMENTARY | City Council member Matt Carlucci said Thursday he will not run for Jacksonville mayor in 2023 and instead campaign for a second-term to his at-large council seat, a significant development that clears space for at least three other Republicans vying for the city's top elected position.
Carlucci, 65, is a moderate Republican who hoped his centrist record and good-government platform would have bipartisan appeal, but he found the constant race for cash — in what is slated to be the most expensive election in Jacksonville's history — incredibly taxing. JAX Chamber president Daniel Davis and City Council member LeAnna Cumber, both Republicans, have collectively raised millions already for their own anticipated mayoral campaigns. City Council member Al Ferraro is also a declared candidate and is courting the city's most conservative voters, though he will be doing so on a relative shoe-string budget.
Carlucci's exit will also reverberate across the political divide: Donna Deegan — a Democrat, breast-cancer awareness advocate and former broadcast journalist — is also running for mayor, and the two, who are friends, were viewed as vying for some of the same voters and political donors.
"I would love to lead but I can still lead legislatively," Carlucci said in a brief interview Thursday.
Carlucci spent recent days talking to donors and supporters before the news became public. "By retaining the At-Large seat, I can continue to lead legislatively and contribute to the betterment of our beautiful city for years to come," he told some of them in written remarks.
Carlucci's father, Joe, was a key advocate for the creation of Jacksonville's consolidated government a half century ago, a political legacy the younger Carlucci views as central to his identity as an elected official. Carlucci, a veteran member of the council, has long eyed the office of mayor. In 2003, at 47, he made his first run for the office and was widely viewed as a leading contender.
Eighteen years later, Carlucci found himself a formidable underdog: Unlikely to outraise opponents like Davis and Cumber but with much higher natural name ID among voters and a committed following (Carlucci came in second, behind Deegan, in a University of North Florida poll earlier this year of the mayor's race, well outpacing his rivals).
Carlucci framed his mayoral candidacy in direct contrast to what he views as an overly partisan, bare-knuckle status quo in City Hall. He styles himself a bit after the populist former mayor Jake Godbold, and he had a long-running friendship and political alliance with former Democratic mayor and council member Tommy Hazouri, who died in September.
But Carlucci's fundraising began to significantly slow in recent months, and he endured a public breakup with his original campaign consultants, who were angered Carlucci dismissed a former council aide for reasons they found unacceptable.
Still, even Carlucci's rivals viewed him as, at minimum, a significantly complicating factor in Jacksonville's mayoral race, which features a jungle primary in March 2023, in which all candidates of all parties run against one another. If no one wins an outright majority in that first election, the top two voter-getters head to a run-off in May.
"It will always haunt me to a degree," Carlucci told me, to wonder what would happen if he were to stay in the mayoral race.
Carlucci said he's not yet ready to endorse anyone in the mayoral race, though he will be "watching it closely" as he campaigns for his own re-election to the City Council.
Nate Monroe's City column regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. This was a breaking news column. Follow Nate on Twitter @NateMonroeTU.
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