Ken Jefferson far outdistanced a crowded field in a fight to be Jacksonville’s next sheriff, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a May 19 general election against Mike Williams.
Jefferson, a Democrat, took 66,422 votes for 36.6 percent of the total vote count. Williams edged Jimmy Holderfield, racking up 40,619 votes to Holderfield’s 37,276, a difference of less than 2 percent.
Jefferson emerged as the front runner early in the campaign.
“Even though the early polls showed I was in the lead, I always ran a humble race, because polls can change,” he said. “We live to fight on and to put in the work for the next election,” he said.
While the race for front-runner status was clear from the first returns, the slot for second place proved to be a nail-biter.
“We knew this was going to be a close one,” Williams said. “Jimmy ran a great campaign and was always going to be a tough opponent right from the beginning.”
Both he and Holderfield are Republicans.
Williams is endorsed by outgoing Sheriff John Rutherford, while Holderfield captured the Fraternal Order of Police backing.
With crime a top issue on the minds of voters, combined with city belt-tightening that has seen cuts to the department, the election to replace Rutherford could be a watershed moment for the sheriff’s office.
Jefferson, a 24-year veteran of the office, promised to reduce violent crime, drug crime and gang activity in Jacksonville by 25 percent during his first year in office.
He said he will use crime tracking software programs such as CompStat to identify high-crime areas and will deploy a newly created street crimes unit to those areas.
On the budget, Jefferson said during a debate he did not expect the City Council to restore cuts that resulted in the loss of 147 officers, and that the department would have to find ways to live within its current budget.
Jefferson also pledged to focus on at-risk youth, ages 9-12, saying he would set up a mentoring program with department staff, so the community would not lose the next generation.
Jefferson was JSO’s public information officer before retiring and also served in earlier years as a recruiter and an investigative detective in both the burglary and sex crimes units.
Tuesday night Williams said his strong record of fighting crime is what resonated with voters.
“I highlighted the fact that I spent every day of my 23 years in JSO fighting crime in the community,” he said. “I didn’t work other administrative jobs.”
Williams said he always worked in the sheriff’s office’s operations section. He retired in 2014 after serving as director of patrol and enforcement, a job that required him to lead more than 1,000 officers and manage a budget of $100 million.
On the department’s tight budget, Williams said he would lobby City Council to restore the 147 police jobs lost though budget cuts. He does not believe reorganizing the department, as some candidates proposed, would put 100 or 200 more patrol officers on the street.
“You’re always evaluating those positions,” he said, “but that math just doesn’t work.”
Now that the race is down to two candidates, they’ll be able to drill down more on issues, Williams said.
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