Donalds and Jolly Make Final Campaign Stops as Florida Heads Into Election Day With 5.2 Million Ballots Already Cast

Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly spent Monday, the last full day of the 2026 campaign, making closing stops across Florida as the two men vying to succeed term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to squeeze out every remaining vote before polls open Tuesday morning. They head into Election Day with roughly 5.2 million Floridians having already cast ballots early in person or by mail, and with the most recent public polling showing a race within the margin of error.

Donalds, the Naples congressman endorsed by President Donald Trump, opened his day on a bus tour in Tarpon Springs, moved to Polk County at midday and planned to finish in Sarasota. Jolly, the former Pinellas County congressman who switched parties and won the Democratic nomination in August, started in Haines City, headed to Brevard County and scheduled final rallies in Palm Beach and Broward counties Monday night, according to FOX 13.

The final-day itineraries

Donalds' closing swing, billed as the "Defending the Florida Dream" bus tour, put him on stage in Polk County with Sheriff Grady Judd and U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, who is defending her own seat against Democrat Angie Nixon on Tuesday's ballot. The route, from the Gulf Coast fishing town of Tarpon Springs through the citrus and phosphate country of Polk to Sarasota, ran through some of the most Republican-friendly territory on the Interstate 4 corridor and the southwest coast, where the party is counting on strong Election Day turnout.

Jolly and his running mate, former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, the daughter of former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, have been traveling under a "Believe in Better" banner. Their Monday schedule, from Polk to the Space Coast and then to the two largest Democratic counties north of Miami-Dade, reflected the arithmetic Democrats need: run up margins in Palm Beach and Broward while cutting into Republican strength in Central Florida.

Both campaigns spent the weekend in the state's biggest media markets. WSVN reported that Jolly rallied supporters in Coral Gables on Sunday, while Donalds held a rally in Tampa the same day. Donalds' running mate is state Sen. Bryan Avila, a Hialeah Republican he named in August.

What each candidate is promising

In his closing remarks, Donalds told supporters he expects to win and to be the state's next governor, FOX 13 reported. He has framed the race as a choice to keep the policies of the DeSantis era, telling the Tampa crowd on Sunday, according to WSVN, "This is why people come here. They come for the freedoms, the opportunity, the liberty." He has pledged to keep taxes low, protect property owners, lower construction and insurance costs, build needed roads, protect the state's aquifers and keep agricultural land in production.

Donalds' insurance plan, branded "Bring Down the Bill," promises to cut property insurance costs by building on the litigation and market reforms the Republican-led Legislature passed in 2022 and 2023. He has also called for the state's Taxation and Budget Reform Commission to study eliminating property taxes on primary homes, while stopping short of promising that outcome.

Jolly has argued that Florida's economy should work for everyone and that policy should flow from shared values. His campaign has emphasized affordable housing, health care, education and infrastructure, and his signature insurance proposal is a state catastrophic fund that would take hurricane coverage out of the private market. Jolly says that approach could cut family property insurance bills by as much as 60 percent; Donalds has attacked it as a costly fund without an identified funding source. On Sunday in Coral Gables, Jolly told supporters, "The reality is, this race is going to get decided by who shows up on Tuesday now," according to WSVN.

Where the race stands

Public polling has consistently shown a tighter contest than Florida's recent statewide elections, which Republicans have won comfortably. The University of North Florida's Public Opinion Research Lab, in a live-telephone survey of 1,471 likely voters conducted Oct. 12 to 19, found Donalds at 49 percent and Jolly at 47 percent, with 4 percent undecided. That two-point gap sits inside the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 2.81 percentage points, and it narrowed from a five-point Donalds lead in UNF's July survey.

A final St. Pete Polls survey for Florida Politics showed a similar picture, with Donalds ahead 48 percent to 46 percent, a lead the publication described as contingent on Republicans turning out. Other October polls have ranged more widely, from a double-digit Donalds lead in a Stetson University survey to a tie in a Change Research poll.

The fundamentals still favor the Republican. Florida had about 5.65 million active registered Republicans and 4.1 million active Democrats as of Aug. 31, a GOP edge of roughly 1.55 million voters, and Donalds has enjoyed a large financial advantage. Through Sept. 11, his campaign and affiliated committees had raised $120.9 million to about $14.6 million for Jolly, according to state filings reported by FOX 13.

Early and mail voting totals

Early in-person voting ended statewide over the weekend, with some counties closing Saturday and others, including Hillsborough, Pinellas, Orange and Sarasota, extending hours through Sunday. By the time sites closed Sunday night, just under 5.2 million Floridians had voted early or by mail, nearly 300,000 more than at the same point in the 2022 midterm, Bay News 9 reported. Almost 1.4 million of those early ballots were cast between Friday morning and Sunday night.

The partisan breakdown reported by Bay News 9 shows the two parties using different methods:

Taken together, those figures put Republicans modestly ahead of Democrats in ballots already cast, a smaller cushion than the party built before Election Day in 2022. Unaffiliated voters, who make up a growing share of the electorate, are likely to decide whether that gap holds. The Florida Division of Elections will post official statewide totals as county supervisors report them.

What voters need to know Tuesday

Voters who did not cast a ballot early or return a mail ballot must vote in person at their assigned precinct on Tuesday; unlike early voting, they cannot go to any site in their county. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time. Most of Florida is in the Eastern time zone, but the western Panhandle runs on Central time, so the last polls in the state close at 8 p.m. Eastern.

• Bring a valid photo ID that includes a signature, such as a Florida driver's license or state ID card.
• Anyone in line at 7 p.m. local time will be allowed to vote.
• Mail ballots must be received by the county supervisor of elections by 7 p.m. Tuesday to count; they cannot be dropped off at precincts.

The governor's race shares the ballot with the U.S. Senate contest between Moody and Nixon, all of Florida's congressional seats, legislative races, a statewide property tax amendment and local measures such as St. Petersburg's mayoral runoff.

What's next

Counties begin reporting results shortly after 7 p.m. Eastern, and early and mail ballots, which are tabulated before Election Day, typically make up the first wave of returns. Because Republicans have historically dominated Election Day voting in Florida, Democrats will be looking for a large early lead in those first numbers. A margin of 0.5 percentage points or less would trigger an automatic machine recount under state law.

Whoever wins will be sworn in in January and inherit a state still wrestling with high property insurance premiums, rising housing costs and a looming debate over property taxes. Donalds would become Florida's first Black governor; Jolly would be the first Democrat to win the office since Lawton Chiles was re-elected in 1994.