Donalds and Jolly Enter the Final Stretch of Florida's Governor Race

Florida voters will choose a new governor on November 3 in the state's first open gubernatorial contest since 2018. Republican U.S. Representative Byron Donalds faces Democrat David Jolly, a former Republican congressman, with Libertarian Scott Jewett also on the ballot. Governor Ron DeSantis is term-limited, which removes the incumbency advantage that has shaped Florida statewide races for most of the past decade.

The candidates

Byron Donalds represents Southwest Florida in Congress and won the Republican nomination with 47.8 percent of the primary vote in a multi-candidate field. He carried the endorsement of President Donald Trump into the primary, which in recent Florida Republican contests has been a decisive factor. Donalds named state Senator Bryan Avila as his running mate in late August.

David Jolly won the Democratic nomination and selected former U.S. Representative Gwen Graham as his running mate. Jolly's political history is unusual for a Democratic nominee. He was elected to Congress as a Republican from Pinellas County, later left the party, and has spent recent years as a commentator and critic of his former party.

Graham's selection carries its own signal. She is the daughter of Bob Graham, who served as governor and then as United States senator and remains among the most successful Democrats in modern Florida history. Gwen Graham represented a North Florida congressional district and ran for governor herself in 2018, finishing second in the Democratic primary.

Scott Jewett is the Libertarian Party nominee. Third-party candidates rarely factor in Florida gubernatorial outcomes, but in a close race the margin can matter.

The structural challenge for Democrats

The arithmetic facing Jolly is daunting. Florida has not elected a Democratic governor since 1994, when Lawton Chiles won a second term. Republicans have won every gubernatorial contest since 1998, a streak now spanning seven consecutive elections.

Voter registration has moved decisively during that period. Democrats held a registration advantage in Florida for decades, and that advantage eroded through the 2010s before flipping. Republicans now hold a registration lead measured in the hundreds of thousands, a reversal that took place primarily over the past six years.

DeSantis won reelection in 2022 by a margin that had no precedent in modern Florida gubernatorial politics, carrying counties including Miami-Dade that had been reliably Democratic in statewide races. That result reset expectations about what is achievable for Republicans in Florida and about what Democrats must do to compete.

What the campaigns are running on

Cost of living has dominated Florida political discussion for several cycles, and both campaigns are engaging it. Property insurance premiums, condominium association assessments, housing costs, and utility rates are the specific pressures Florida households cite most consistently.

Insurance is the most Florida-specific of those. The state's property insurance market went through a period of carrier insolvencies and withdrawals before legislative changes altered litigation rules and reinsurance arrangements. Rates have since stabilized in parts of the market, with Citizens Property Insurance Corporation approving its first average statewide rate reduction in years. Whether households feel that relief is a contested point.

Housing affordability runs alongside it. Florida absorbed substantial in-migration through the early 2020s, and prices rose accordingly. The single-family market has held its gains while the condominium market has softened under the weight of new reserve funding and structural inspection requirements that took effect at the start of 2026.

Education, immigration enforcement, and the state's approach to higher education governance are the areas where the candidates diverge most sharply. Donalds has aligned with the direction DeSantis has set. Jolly has campaigned against significant portions of it.

The regions that decide Florida

Florida's statewide elections turn on a handful of geographies. The Interstate 4 corridor running from Tampa Bay through Orlando to Daytona Beach has historically been the swing region, containing Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Osceola, Orange, Seminole, and Volusia counties. Orange and Osceola have trended Democratic while Polk and Volusia have moved the other direction.

Southeast Florida, meaning Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, generates the largest Democratic vote totals. Miami-Dade's shift toward Republicans in 2020 and 2022 was the single largest change in the Florida map, driven substantially by Cuban American, Venezuelan, and Colombian voters.

Southwest Florida, including Lee and Collier counties, is heavily Republican and is Donalds's home base. Northeast Florida centered on Duval County has become more competitive at the local level while remaining Republican statewide. North Florida and the Panhandle are reliably Republican and turn out at high rates.

Tampa Bay is the region both campaigns will contest most heavily. Hillsborough and Pinellas together cast a large share of the statewide vote, and Jolly's political base is in Pinellas.

What is on the ballot alongside

The governor's race shares the ballot with a United States Senate special election, in which appointed Republican Senator Ashley Moody faces Democratic state Representative Angie Nixon for the remaining two years of the term Marco Rubio won in 2022. That contest gives both parties a second statewide organizing target.

The Attorney General's race is also on the ballot, with James Uthmeier running for a full term. Uthmeier's campaign released its first television advertisement of the cycle, a 30 second spot featuring several sheriffs endorsing his record on child predator prosecutions and crimes against seniors.

All 28 Florida congressional seats are up, along with the full Florida House and half the Florida Senate. Down-ballot turnout effects run in both directions, and campaigns in competitive legislative districts will be watching the top of the ticket closely.

What it means for Floridians

The governor of Florida holds substantial authority. The office appoints judges to fill vacancies, appoints members of the Board of Governors and the State Board of Education, appoints water management district governing boards, and holds line-item veto power over the state budget.

That appointment power compounds over a term. A governor serving four years shapes the composition of bodies that set higher education policy, manage water resources across the Everglades and the state's aquifers, and regulate insurance. Those decisions outlast the term that produced them.

Emergency management is the authority Floridians encounter most directly. The governor declares states of emergency, activates the National Guard, and coordinates with FEMA on disaster declarations and recovery funding. In a state that faces hurricanes annually, that function is not abstract.

How Florida campaigns are run

Florida is expensive to contest. The state contains 10 media markets, several of them among the most costly in the country, and a statewide television campaign requires buying Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando-Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers-Naples, Tallahassee, Panama City, Pensacola, and Gainesville.

Language is the other complication. Spanish-language media in South Florida and Central Florida reaches a large and politically distinct audience, and campaigns that treat Spanish-language advertising as a translation of English messaging generally underperform. The Cuban American, Venezuelan, Colombian, and Puerto Rican communities respond to different appeals.

Vote-by-mail operations have historically favored whichever party invested in them. Republicans built a substantial mail advantage in Florida over decades, Democrats surpassed them in the late 2010s, and the pattern shifted again after the party's national messaging on mail voting changed. A state law ending automatic renewal of mail ballot requests forced both parties to rebuild their lists.

Early voting turnout typically exceeds election day turnout in Florida's large counties. Campaigns therefore run their field programs against the early voting window rather than concentrating on a single day, and daily turnout reports from supervisors of elections drive tactical decisions in the final two weeks.

What the governor controls

The budget is the most consequential power. Florida's governor holds line-item veto authority over appropriations, which means the office can strike individual spending items from a budget passed by the Legislature without vetoing the whole bill. Governors have used that authority extensively.

Judicial appointments compound over time. The governor fills vacancies on Florida's circuit and district courts and appoints justices to the Florida Supreme Court from lists provided by judicial nominating commissions, whose members the governor also appoints. Over a full term, that authority reshapes the state judiciary.

Agency leadership follows the same logic. The governor appoints the heads of most executive agencies, including the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Children and Families, the Agency for Health Care Administration, and the Department of Economic Opportunity. Those appointments determine how state law is implemented.

The governor also appoints members of the State Board of Education, the Board of Governors, water management district governing boards, and hundreds of other boards and commissions. Florida's executive is among the more powerful state governorships in the country by these measures, notwithstanding the Cabinet's shared authority in specific areas.

What's next

Florida voters can check registration status and confirm their polling location through their county supervisor of elections. The registration deadline for the general election falls 29 days before election day, and vote-by-mail requests must be submitted in advance of a separate deadline.

Early voting periods are set by county supervisors within a range established by state law, and most large counties run the maximum available window. Vote-by-mail requests in Florida no longer carry over across election cycles, which means voters who used mail ballots in prior years must request them again.

Debates, if the campaigns agree to them, would typically be scheduled in October. Campaign finance reports filed with the Florida Division of Elections provide the clearest running picture of resources on each side heading into the final weeks.

Voters wanting to compare the candidates directly can review the campaigns' published positions and the Florida Division of Elections filings, which list all qualified candidates for every office on the ballot. Sample ballots become available through county supervisors closer to election day.

Fifty-three days remain before Florida chooses its first new governor in eight years. The office that results will shape state policy well past the term that produces it.