Ken Amaro flips Jacksonville City Council seat red
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (FLV) – Jacksonville Republicans celebrated after Republican Ken Amaro flipped a seat red for city council district 1 in the March 2023 Duval County Unitary Election.
Amaro received around 66% of the vote against Democrat Alton McGriff Jr., who received around 34% for city council district 1, according to unofficial results.
“We flipped Duval in 2022 and tonight we outhustled and outperformed Democrats in that same county. Democrat despair and Republican momentum continues in Duval, but we’re not done yet. The Republican Party looks forward to finishing the job in May,” Florida GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler said.
Amaro is a retired journalist who previously served WTLV as a reporter for First Coast News for more than 40 years.
Florida’s Voice asked Amaro Tuesday morning how his 40 years of covering the community might set him up for success.
Amaro said he knows what the community needs are and that he believes he would bring the “experience of listening to the folks.”
“So I think I bring that compassion, that listening ear, that voice for the voiceless to city hall and that’s why I’m in the race, I think I can make a difference,” Amaro said.
Despite Democrats having a 28,000 voter registration advantage, Jacksonville Republicans, who were divided on who to pick for mayor, turned out nearly 7,000 voters greater than Democrats, or a margin of nearly 3%.
Republican Terrance Freeman, president of the Jacksonville City Council, won an overwhelming reelection to at-large group 1 on Tuesday with the highest votes of any singular candidate citywide.
Unofficial results found Freeman reaching 100,264 votes with nearly all counted, or 65.13%.
His opponent, Libertarian Eric Parker, received 53,683 votes, or 34.87%.
The candidate who garnered the second most votes was Republican Ron Salem for at-large group 2, with 88,049 votes.
Democrat City Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman won the seat for city council district 10 with almost 65% of the vote against three other Democrats.
Other races, like the mayoral and other city council races, will move to head-to-head runoffs May 16.
