Byron Donalds launches 50-stop bus tour as early voting opens and his cash edge over David Jolly grows

Republican gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds will spend the final two weeks of Florida's governor's race on a bus. His campaign announced Friday, Oct. 17, a 50-stop tour across 38 counties, from the Panhandle to South Florida, that begins Monday, Oct. 19, the same day early voting opens in many Florida counties. The campaign is calling it the Defending the Florida Dream Tour and pitching it as a way to meet voters where they are ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

The tour launches as fresh campaign finance figures show the money gap in the race is still widening. Democrat David Jolly had one of the strongest fundraising weeks of his campaign, according to Florida Politics, but Donalds raised roughly three times as much over the same period.

The first three days of stops

Donalds, the Naples congressman, will travel with his wife, Erika Donalds, and his running mate, Bryan Avila. Statewide Republican officials are scheduled to join him at various points, including Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, Attorney General James Uthmeier and Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, according to the campaign's announcement as reported by Florida Politics.

The campaign has released the schedule for the opening three days only:

The route on those first days reaches into very different parts of the state: the retiree-heavy Villages in Sumter County, the Space Coast and the Treasure Coast, Miami-Dade and Broward, and rural Hendry and DeSoto counties around Lake Okeechobee and the Peace River. The campaign said details on the remaining stops will be released as the tour continues through Election Day.

Trump returns to Southwest Florida

The bus tour will overlap with a visit from President Donald Trump, who is scheduled to rally for Donalds in Fort Myers on Friday, Oct. 23. According to the Florida Phoenix, doors open at 10:30 a.m., the program begins at 12:30 p.m. and Trump is set to speak at 2 p.m. The venue had not been announced as of the latest reports. Trump has said he plans two Florida rallies for Donalds before the election.

Trump's endorsement made Donalds the early favorite for the Republican nomination, and he won the Aug. 18 primary by 23 points over Lt. Gov. Jay Collins. Fort Myers sits next to Donalds' home base in Collier County, in a region where Republicans hold a wide voter registration advantage.

One of Jolly's best weeks, still outpaced

In the reporting week that ended Oct. 9, Jolly raised just over $1.97 million between his campaign account and his political committee, Florida 2026, Florida Politics reported. Of that, $1,008,073 was hard money given directly to the campaign. That trails only the roughly $2.7 million he brought in during his best week of the race.

Donalds raised more than $5.9 million between his campaign account and his political committee during the same week. The GEO Group, the Boca Raton-based private prison and immigration detention operator, and a committee called Fighting for Florida's Families each gave $1 million, according to the report.

Over the full cycle, Jolly has raised more than $21 million, while Donalds has raised more than $146 million, Florida Politics reported. Those cumulative totals combine campaign and committee accounts, and the share of that money Donalds still has on hand is smaller than the headline figure.

The imbalance has been a theme for weeks. Earlier this fall, Florida Politics reported that Jolly was being outraised about 8 to 1, and the former Pinellas County congressman publicly asked national Democrats to help close the cash gap. Jolly has said he is not worried, pointing to Florida's public matching funds program and to what he describes as a growing base of small-dollar donors.

GEO Group's giving has drawn attention in the race before. A September report by WLRN and other public radio stations noted that the company has also given to the committees of Uthmeier and Ingoglia, two of the officials now scheduled to campaign alongside Donalds.

What the polls show

Public polling has Donalds ahead, though the size of the lead depends heavily on the pollster.

The Mason-Dixon survey of 625 registered Florida voters who said they were likely to vote was conducted by live telephone interview and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points; 10% were undecided. The St. Pete Polls survey of 836 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 points, showed the race as a statistical tie. Stetson's poll, released Oct. 13, found 5% undecided and 3% backing a third-party candidate, according to coverage of the release.

The candidates also split on the biggest item on the ballot. Donalds has argued that Amendment 3, which would sharply raise the homestead exemption on non-school property taxes, would protect public safety funding, while Jolly has said he will vote no because of concerns about cuts to law enforcement and local services.

Early voting and key dates

Florida counties may begin early voting as early as Oct. 19, and many, including Hillsborough and Volusia, start that day. State law requires every county to offer early voting at least from Saturday, Oct. 24, through Saturday, Oct. 31, and some counties extend it through Sunday, Nov. 1. Hours and locations vary by county, so voters should check with their local supervisor of elections.

The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot is 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22. Completed mail ballots must reach the county elections office by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, and voters can also drop them off at early voting sites.

What's next

The Donalds campaign is expected to release the rest of the tour schedule day by day, with the Fort Myers rally on Oct. 23 as the marquee event of the closing stretch. The next round of state campaign finance reports will show whether Jolly's recent surge holds up, and whether national Democratic money arrives in the final two weeks. With polls ranging from a tie to an 11-point Donalds lead, early voting turnout by party will be the next real measure of where the race stands.