How the Florida Times-Union covered historic victory

This past week, the people of Jacksonville, Fla., elected its first black mayor in the history of the city. Democrat Alvin Brown beat Republican Mike Hogan in a runoff on May 17. The runoff followed the March election in which the two garnered the most votes.

Many of my former colleagues at The Florida Times-Union did great work this week. Here’s some — but not all — of that work.

By the time Wednesday’s paper went to bed, the two were 603 votes apart. Brown photo shot by Bruce Lipsky, Hogan shot by Bob Self. But by Wednesday afternoon…

…Alvin Brown was declared the victor. The victory shot from Thursday’s paper by Don Burk.

Reporter Matt Galnor explained the historic win’s statistics and graphic artist Annie Liao made this graphic showing the precinct-by-precinct results. Click for a larger view.

Annie Liao infographic Jacksonville mayor's race precincts

And Sunday, Tim Gibbons wrote a piece analyzing Alvin Brown’s campaign and how he won.

Jacksonville was my home for four and a half years, and because of the time I spent there with such great friends and colleagues, I will always think of Jacksonville as one of my homes. Thus, even though I no longer live there, this mayoral race was pretty interesting to me. And it reminded me of a few graphics I did that can now be updated.

In January 2009, I researched and put together this graphic in time for Obama’s inauguration. This timeline-chart hybrid shows which party was in control of the presidency, U.S. Senate and House, Florida Governorship, Senate and House, and the Jacksonville mayor’s office and city council from 1960 to 2009.

A month later, I researched and put together this graphic showing how long it took for black men and women to be elected into various political offices, from the White House down to Jacksonville positions. Jacksonville’s first black city council members post-Reconstruction were Sallye Mathis, Mary Singleton and Earl Johnson. Nat Glover became the first black sheriff in 1995. He ran for mayor in 2003, but lost to John Peyton. Jackie Brown, a black woman, ran for mayor in 2007, but also lost to Peyton. She died shortly after the election.

I’m looking forward to the possible graphics that can come from this election. Between Brown’s victory, Peyton’s administration coming to an end and the shift of influence in the city, there will be no shortage of graphics.

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UPDATE

Denise M. Reagan, AME for Visuals at The Florida Times-Union, writes:

The blogs on election night and all the next day during the count of provisional and absentee ballots were well done and featured a lot of participation from the community.

Additionally, on Monday, #AlvinBrownVictorySongs was a hashtag on Twitter for — you guessed it — potential victory songs for Alvin Brown.

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