U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds won the Republican nomination for Florida governor and former Rep. David Jolly won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, setting the stage for a November contest to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Donalds banked on President Donald Trump’s endorsement in hopes of securing the Republican nomination and advance to the fall election.
Democrats' pick for governor is David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who switched parties last year.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading conservative figure who has clashed and collaborated with Trump over the years, is barred from running for a third consecutive term.
The first polls closed at 7 p.m. in Tuesday's primaries, which are giving final form to a November ballot whose races will test Trump’s grip on his adopted state and Democrats' ability to resurrect Florida as a national political battleground. Florida has moved notably to the right since Trump won his first election in 2016, though Democrats hope to regain ground from his slumping popularity ratings.
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Two Democrats battled for nomination in a U.S. Senate special election to complete Marco Rubio’s term after he became Trump's secretary of state last year. Progressive state lawmaker Angie Nixon defeated retired Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, a former National Security Council official who testified in Trump's first impeachment case in 2019.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ashley Moody, the DeSantis appointee currently holding the seat, appears in a strong position as she seeks the Republican nomination with Trump's endorsement for the term's final two years.
For Congress, Tuesday's biggest fight involved longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who defeated former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and others in a redrawn south Florida district.
Wasserman Schultz, who is white, urged voters in the new, plurality Black district to grant her a 12th term. Cherfilus-McCormick had sought a comeback after resigning earlier this year under a pending federal indictment and threat of House ethics sanctions.
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Donalds is trying to make history — and Jolly, too
There have been three elected Black governors in U.S. history. Yet the 47-year-old Donalds is more likely to tout his conservative credentials than the possibility of joining that select group.
He promises to push tax cuts, overhaul Florida's insurance regulations to lower consumer costs and seek greater price transparency from healthcare providers.
“The people of Florida want to make sure that the Florida dream is alive and well into the future,” he said recently. “Affordability is a problem for all Floridians. It doesn't matter what your politics are. It doesn't matter what the color of your skin is.”
Trump has had an inconsistent record on picks for governor in primaries this year, and a strong showing by Donalds would leave him, and Republicans in general, in a more commanding position for November. Though DeSantis coasted to reelection in 2022, he squeaked into office in 2018 by little more of 32,000 ballots out of 8.1 million cast.
Republican voter Timothy Clawser in Port St. Lucie said that while he generally supports Trump as president, he did not support Donalds for governor, calling him “untested.”
“I know Trump carries a lot of weight and throws his endorsement behind different candidates,” Clawser said. “I’m looking more for your record and what you are doing. I think there are a better choices than Byron Donalds."
Meanwhile, Jolly is hoping ultimately to prove a party-switching former Republican can actually carry the Democratic banner in a state where that's failed before. Democrats nominated former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist in 2022 only to see him lose by nearly 20 percentage points to DeSantis.
Rich Chamberlin, a retiree in Port St. Lucie, said he supported Jolly in Tuesday's primary, spurred on by attack ads against him.
“I saw anti-Jolly ads. I said ‘Ok, if they are against him, then I must be for him,'" Chamberlin said, adding he didn't mind Jolly used to be a Republican.
