What Governor-Elect Byron Donalds Wants to Do, and Why DeSantis Is Telling Republicans to 'Buckle Up'

Byron Donalds will be sworn in as Florida's 47th governor on Jan. 5, 2027, carrying a platform built around insurance, permitting, schools and immigration enforcement into a Capitol that looks different than it did a week ago. His predecessor, Gov. Ron DeSantis, spent the days after Tuesday's election warning fellow Republicans that the national results were a historic setback and that they should "buckle up."

Donalds, a Naples Republican who represents Southwest Florida in Congress, defeated Democrat David Jolly by under 2 percentage points, about 108,000 votes, according to WUSF. His running mate, former state Sen. Bryan Avila of Miami, will be lieutenant governor. The two now have about two months to assemble an administration, write a first budget proposal and prepare for a 2027 legislative session in which Republicans no longer hold a two-thirds majority in the House.

The agenda in his own platform

Donalds's campaign platform lists 11 issue areas, according to a WKMG review published Friday. In his victory speech, he named the ones he plans to lead with: making Florida more affordable by cutting property taxes, streamlining development permits and removing certain insurance premium surcharges, along with strong immigration enforcement and more transparency in government spending, WUSF reported.

The main commitments, by area, according to the platform as summarized by WKMG:

Insurance, taxes and affordability

Insurance sits at the top of the platform. Beyond defending the 2022 changes that limited lawsuits against insurers, Donalds proposes reshaping the My Safe Florida Home program toward storm hardening, streamlining rebuilding permits and requiring insurers to report accurate data on claim speed and denial rates for a public scorecard, with fines for bad data. During the campaign he said he believed insurance costs could be pushed down by another 20 percent through regulatory changes.

On property taxes, Donalds backed expanding the homestead exemption and has said he would keep looking for ways to reduce or eliminate taxes on primary homes. Voters approved Amendment 3 on Tuesday with 62 percent of the vote, raising the homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. Before the vote, he said that if the amendment failed he would push the issue through the state's Tax and Budget Reform Commission, which meets in 2027. The amendment's passage means much of the early work will be implementing it rather than replacing it.

The platform also calls for keeping the electricity and water costs of large data centers off household utility bills, requiring utilities to harden power lines and water plants against Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, and speeding road and bridge work without new toll booths.

Schools and health

Donalds has said he wants to change how the Florida Education Finance Program, the state's main K-12 funding formula, distributes money so districts have more flexibility in spending, CBS News Miami reported. DeSantis has suggested lawmakers could revisit the formula next year, after Amendment 3 changes the property tax base that helps fund it.

His education plan centers on early reading: phonics training for teachers, screening in kindergarten through second grade, free state-funded tutoring for struggling third graders, bonuses for top reading teachers and a return to physical books. He also proposes a personalized success plan for every student by sixth grade, expanding paid apprenticeships under a program he calls LaunchPad Florida, and reviving the Presidential Fitness Test.

A "Healthy Florida" section would remove ultra-processed foods and artificial dyes from school meals, test school tap water for lead and other contaminants and publish the results, and offer free well-water testing to families with young children.

DeSantis: 'Buckle up'

DeSantis, who leaves office after two terms, spent Wednesday framing the election. At a news conference in Lake Wales, he called the national results a "100-year-type political earthquake" and said they were "much, much more severe" than the Republican losses of 2006 or 2018, WKMG reported. He pointed to Texas, where Democrat James Talarico won a U.S. Senate seat by double digits and Gina Hinojosa won the governor's office.

Speaking to reporters, he described the results as "the political equivalent of a meteor strike" across the country, according to CBS News Miami, and warned that Republicans may not regain unified control in Washington for years. In a post on X, he predicted Democrats would end up with 55 Senate seats and more than 250 House seats, and said Republicans might not retake the Senate until 2032, WKMG reported. He said the balance of power had shifted and Republicans "can't unring that bell in one election."

DeSantis also said Democrats are unpopular and did not earn a mandate, and described Florida as a firewall against the national wave. He credited the property tax amendment with driving Republican turnout and blamed House Speaker Daniel Perez, with whom he has repeatedly clashed, for the net loss of about 15 GOP House seats, CBS News Miami reported.

What the new balance means for Donalds

Florida Republicans won the governor's race, the U.S. Senate race and the Cabinet races by about 3 points or less, and Democrats may bring the state House to roughly 70 Republicans and 50 Democrats, the fewest GOP members since the party took the chamber in the 1990s, according to CBS News Miami. Donalds will work with House Speaker-designate Sam Garrison and Senate President-designate Jim Boyd.

A House without a two-thirds GOP majority means Donalds will need some Democratic votes to put constitutional amendments on the ballot or to override vetoes, though a simple majority still passes the budget and most bills. With Democrats set to control both chambers of Congress in January, he will also take office as a close Trump ally facing a divided Washington.

The transition

Florida TaxWatch, the Tallahassee-based government spending watchdog, has presented Donalds and Avila with its Governor's Transition Decision Handbook, which collects advice from former Florida governors and lieutenant governors, including the need for transition staff to understand the state's Sunshine Law on public records and meetings. Donalds had not publicly named a transition team or chief of staff as of Friday.

DeSantis, meanwhile, said he plans to call a special session before he leaves to carry out Amendment 3, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. That means the first major property tax decisions of the new era will be made during DeSantis's final weeks, with Donalds inheriting the results.

What's next

The Legislature holds its organizational session Nov. 17, and the Amendment 3 special session is expected before DeSantis's term ends. Donalds and Avila take the oath on Jan. 5, and the governor-elect's first budget recommendation and policy package will be the main business of the 2027 regular session, which begins in March.