Florida Governor Race Enters Final Stretch Before August 18 Primary

Florida voters are three weeks from choosing nominees in the first open governor's race the state has held since 2018. Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited after eight years in office, and the Aug. 18 primary will determine which candidates carry each party's banner into a November general election that will decide who runs the nation's third most populous state.

On the Republican side, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds has led primary polling by wide margins throughout the cycle. Public surveys have shown him with support in the mid-40s against Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins and businessman James Fishback, with a large undecided bloc that has kept him short of an outright majority in most published polling. Donalds entered the race in February 2025 with an endorsement from President Donald Trump and has since accumulated endorsements from much of Florida's Republican establishment.

On the Democratic side, former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, a onetime Republican who left the party, has been the party's most prominent candidate. At least one survey from the University of North Florida has suggested the general election matchup is tighter than earlier polling indicated.

How the Republican primary took shape

Donalds, who represents Southwest Florida in Congress, built an early and durable advantage through two channels: national endorsement and money. Trump's public backing arrived before Donalds formally entered, and it functioned as a clearing signal in a party where the president's endorsement carries decisive weight in Republican primaries.

The endorsement list grew from there. Donalds has been backed by Sen. Rick Scott, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a large share of Florida's Republican congressional delegation, and roughly three-quarters of the Republican caucus in the Florida House, according to published accounts of his campaign's endorsement rollouts. Governors from other states, including Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, have added their names.

The fundraising has matched. Donalds reported raising $13.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, bringing his 2025 total across committees to roughly $45 million, a figure his campaign characterized as a record for a Florida gubernatorial candidate at that stage of a cycle.

Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins, a former Green Beret appointed to the state's second-highest office, entered as the candidate closest to the sitting governor's operation. Polling through the spring and summer has generally shown him in single digits against Donalds, alongside Fishback.

The undecided share is the number worth watching. Surveys showing Donalds in the mid-40s with roughly 39 percent undecided describe a race that is not mathematically closed, though the distribution of endorsements and resources makes a late consolidation against him difficult to engineer in three weeks.

The Democratic path

Democrats approach the race from a structural deficit. Republicans hold a substantial voter registration advantage in Florida, a reversal of the state's long-standing Democratic registration edge that occurred over the past several cycles. Republicans have also won the last two governor's races and swept statewide offices.

David Jolly's candidacy is an attempt to work around that arithmetic. Jolly represented a Tampa Bay area district in Congress as a Republican before leaving the party, and his pitch is built on appealing to independents and to moderate Republicans uncomfortable with the direction of state politics. That profile is a liability in a Democratic primary and a potential asset in a general election, a tension that defines his campaign.

Democratic organizing in Florida has centered on affordability, and specifically on property insurance costs, housing prices and utility bills, subjects where the party sees an opening even among voters who otherwise back Republicans. Whether that message can overcome the registration gap is the central question of the general election.

What is actually on the ballot

The governor's race is the headline, but Aug. 18 is a full primary day. Voters will also decide nominations in a U.S. Senate special election, in congressional races across the state, in Florida Legislature contests, and in county-level races including commission and school board seats. Some local races are decided outright in August rather than November when only candidates from one party qualify or when the race is nonpartisan.

Florida runs a closed primary system for partisan races, which means registered Republicans vote in Republican primaries and registered Democrats in Democratic primaries. Voters registered with no party affiliation, a group that has grown substantially in Florida, cannot participate in either party's primary, though they can vote in nonpartisan contests and any universal primary that appears on their ballot.

That closed system has real consequences for turnout. August primaries in Florida historically draw a small fraction of the general election electorate, skewed toward older and more consistent voters. In a race where one candidate holds a commanding polling lead, low turnout generally reinforces the frontrunner.

What the winner inherits

Whoever takes the oath in January will inherit a state with a specific set of pressures.

Property insurance remains the most persistent household-level issue. Florida has seen new carriers enter the market since the 2022 and 2023 legal reforms, and Citizens Property Insurance has shed a large share of its policy count through depopulation, with regulators approving rate decreases for Citizens policyholders in 2026. Whether those improvements hold through a season with a significant hurricane landfall is untested.

Housing affordability is the second. Median single-family prices statewide have continued to rise, and the combination of price, insurance and property tax has pushed total cost of ownership up faster than incomes in many markets.

Immigration enforcement has become a defining state-level activity under DeSantis, including state-operated detention facilities, and the next governor will decide whether to continue, expand or scale back that posture. Education policy, water and Everglades restoration funding, and the state's approach to public university governance all carry forward as well.

The fiscal picture is comparatively strong. The state signed a 2026-2027 budget earlier this year, and Florida's reserve position has been healthy, though the structural question of a revenue base heavily dependent on sales tax and tourism persists.

How to vote

Florida voters have three options: vote by mail, vote early in person, or vote on primary day. Vote-by-mail requests must be on file with the county supervisor of elections, and Florida law now requires voters to renew those requests more frequently than in past cycles, which has caught out voters who assumed a standing request remained active.

Early voting periods are set by county supervisors within a state-defined window, and the number of early voting days and sites varies by county. Voters should check their county supervisor of elections website for exact dates, hours and locations.

Photo and signature identification is required at the polls. Voters who need to check or update their party registration should note that changes must be made well ahead of a closed primary to take effect for that election.

The DeSantis legacy question

Every open-seat race is partly a referendum on the departing incumbent, and DeSantis leaves an unusually defined record for a successor to accept, modify or reject.

Over eight years he moved Florida governance toward a more assertive use of state power: state-run immigration detention, restructured university governance, expanded school choice, and direct intervention in areas that Florida governors had historically left to local governments or independent boards. Preemption of local authority, on subjects ranging from firearms regulation to rent policy, expanded substantially.

He also presided over a period of strong population growth, healthy state finances and a property insurance market that stabilized after legal reforms in 2022 and 2023. He signed the 2026-2027 budget in June, and his office has framed that as capping eight years of results.

The Republican candidates are competing largely over who best continues that trajectory. The Democratic argument is that the state's affordability crisis, particularly insurance, housing and utility costs, is the more relevant measure of the past eight years than the culture-war record either party emphasizes.

Down-ballot consequences

The governor's race sits at the top of a ballot that determines a great deal more than one office.

Florida's Cabinet offices, including attorney general and chief financial officer, are separately elected and carry real authority. The attorney general controls the state's litigation posture, including whether Florida joins multistate suits against federal policy. The chief financial officer oversees insurance consumer services, a portfolio with direct salience in the current market.

Legislative races determine whether the next governor works with supermajorities or narrower margins. Florida Republicans have held supermajorities in both chambers, which has allowed the Legislature to override vetoes and move legislation without minority support. A narrower margin would change the negotiating dynamics inside the Capitol regardless of who occupies the governor's office.

County commission and school board races, several of which are decided in August rather than November, shape land use, local taxation and district policy in ways residents feel more directly than most state legislation. Turnout in those contests is typically a fraction of the general election, which means small numbers of voters make consequential local decisions.

What's next

The three weeks to Aug. 18 will be dominated by advertising and by whatever late developments either party can generate. In a race with a frontrunner this well resourced, the more consequential storyline is often the margin rather than the outcome, since a decisive win consolidates the party quickly while a narrow one leaves a bruised nominee heading into a general election.

After the primary, attention turns to a November general election that will be contested alongside the Senate special election and the full congressional map. Florida has trended Republican in recent statewide cycles, but an open governor's seat, an affordability-focused Democratic message and a large bloc of unaffiliated voters make the general election the more genuinely uncertain contest.

Voters can confirm their registration status, party affiliation, sample ballot and polling location through the Florida Division of Elections and their county supervisor of elections. The deadline structure in Florida is unforgiving, and the time to check is now rather than in the second week of August.