MAGA Nom Byron Donalds Just Won Florida’s GOP Governor Primary — His Republican-Turned-Democrat Opponent Has an Uphill Battle Ahead

Florida Republicans made their choice Tuesday night: Rep. Byron Donalds will be the GOP nominee for governor. He won with roughly 49 percent of the vote in a crowded eleven-candidate field, with Lt. Gov. Jay Collins finishing a distant second at 25 percent. Trump endorsed Donalds five days before Donalds even officially announced his candidacy back in February 2025. The endorsement held.

On the Democratic side, former Republican congressman David Jolly won his party’s nomination — setting up a Donalds-Jolly general election in November that could not be a starker contrast on almost every dimension.

Jolly represented Florida’s 13th Congressional District as a Republican from 2014 to 2017 before leaving the GOP and eventually joining the Democratic Party in vocal opposition to Trump. He’s running as the Democrat in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since Lawton Chiles narrowly beat Jeb Bush back in 1994. Florida hasn’t elected a Democrat to any statewide office since 2018. It hasn’t given its presidential electoral votes to a Democrat since Barack Obama in 2012.

The trend line is moving the wrong direction for Jolly, not the right one.

Byron Donalds is a different kind of candidate than Florida Republicans have fielded for governor in recent cycles. He’s Black, working-class in background, MAGA-aligned in politics, and a communicator whose national profile — built through years of sharp floor speeches and television appearances — translates directly into the kind of earned media that matters in a statewide race. DeSantis was a fighter. Donalds is a fighter who can also deliver the argument with the kind of precision and accessibility that turns persuadable voters into Republican voters.