The convenience store heir easily beats Sheriff Nat Glover's bid to be the first black man to hold the office.
By Associated Press
Published May 14, 2003
JACKSONVILLE - Eight-year Sheriff Nat Glover lost his race Tuesday to become the first black mayor in white-majority Jacksonville.
Glover, a Democrat, conceded shortly before 9:30 p.m. to Republican John Peyton, heir to a family business that operates scores of gas and convenience stores in Southeastern states.
"You must not have heard; we lost this thing," Glover said cheerfully to supporters chanting "Glover, Glover, Glover" as he took the platform.
With all the vote counted, Peyton had 58 percent to Glover's 42 percent. Election officials said 230,100 votes were cast in the race in a city with 462,920 registered voters - virtually a 50 percent turnout.
Glover said he had called Peyton and offered to help him in any way. "This is a great city," he said. "Now it's time for us to work together and move forward together."
Jacksonville calls itself "the Bold New City of the South," but traces of its troubled past emerged as an issue this month when vandals spray-painted racial graffiti on Glover's campaign headquarters and defaced a sign outside the offices of a white Republican who supported Glover. Peyton joined Glover in denouncing the acts as hate crimes.
At Supervisor of Elections John Stafford's invitation, the U.S. Justice Department sent five roving voting rights monitors in to watch the election. "After all the racial graffiti, I thought it would be a good idea," said Stafford.
Glover had said he didn't think the vandalism hurt race relations in the city, where 15 percent of nearly 800,000 residents are black. "Jacksonville took the race question off the table eight years ago," he said, referring to his election as sheriff in 1995. Peyton, 38, will replace John Delaney, who is stepping down after eight years because of term limits. Delaney is a finalist for the presidency of the University of North Florida.
Republicans also won easily over Democrats Tuesday in four of five City Council races - the only Democratic winner was in a district where two Democrats faced each other. Republican Jim Overton took 60 percent of the vote to beat Democrat William H. King for property appraiser.
Jacksonville voters have tended to vote Republican since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
