Florida voters head to the polls as Trump-backed Donalds leads race to succeed DeSantis

Florida voters head to the polls this Tuesday to choose the candidates who will represent each party in November’s race to succeed Governor Ron DeSantis. In the Republican primary, Byron Donalds, 47, a congressman from southwest Florida who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, enters the primary with a commanding lead to secure the nomination. On the Democratic side, the frontrunner is David Jolly, 53, a former Tampa Bay-area congressman who left the Republican Party in 2018 and joined the Democrats last year.

Polls suggest the Republican contest is all but decided, with Donalds leading at 49% support, well ahead of his rivals, including Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins. DeSantis, who has served for eight years and is barred from seeking a third consecutive term, did not endorse a candidate.

But experts say that a Donalds victory in Tuesday’s Republican primary does not mean the November race is a foregone conclusion. According to a poll released last month by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL), Donalds holds only a five-point lead over Jolly among likely November voters, 46% to 41%, a much narrower margin than those seen in major Republican victories in recent years. DeSantis, for example, defeated Democrat Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points in 2022.

“This is still an election Donalds can lose more than one Jolly has already won,” says Professor Sean Freeder, director of PORL. Under the right circumstances, “Jolly has a chance,” he adds.

The analyst points to a pattern that has repeated itself throughout U.S. history, not only in Florida but nationwide: voters tend to punish the incumbent president’s party in midterm elections. Trump is also now facing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, just 33%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published Monday, and Freeder believes that could ultimately hurt other Republican candidates as well.

“I think this has to do, in general, with the wear of the party in power and, in particular, with Trump dragging down the Republican Party across all 50 states, and that will also happen in Florida,” he says.

Jolly’s Republican past is a double-edged sword. It could work in his favor by attracting conservative independents and Republicans disillusioned with Trump, or against him if Democratic base voters see him as too moderate. “We’ve often seen this dynamic where the Democratic base gets frustrated because it doesn’t have a candidate closer to its left-leaning positions. That could also affect turnout, and some unhappy Democrats might even opt for a third party. Most of the time, those two effects almost cancel each other out,” Feeder explains.

Jolly has pledged to focus on issues affecting Floridians, including the high cost of living, housing, healthcare and education. At the same time, he has criticized the “culture wars” that DeSantis has pursued around race, sexual orientation and gender in schools, saying they “have gone too far.”

Florida has not elected a Democratic governor this century. The last one was Lawton Chiles, who won office in 1994.

Donalds, meanwhile, has promised to continue the conservative direction charted by DeSantis and has endorsed some of the governor’s signature policies, including tax cuts and expanded access to private schools. He has also emphasized affordability and housing costs as top priorities. If elected in November, he would become Florida’s first Black governor.

“Donalds has never distanced himself from his support of DeSantis and frequently highlights his backing of some of the governor’s most popular policies,” says Susan MacManus, professor emerita of political science at the University of South Florida (USF) and an expert on state politics and elections.

Donalds endorsed Trump during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, even while DeSantis was seeking the nomination himself. He was also considered a potential vice-presidential running mate. Trump endorsed Donalds in February of last year, before he had even formally entered the race.

Donalds has raised more than $100 million for the race, roughly ten times as much as Jolly.

For decades, Florida was a swing state, with neither Republicans nor Democrats enjoying a clear advantage, but its electorate has shifted sharply to the right in recent years. DeSantis won his first term in 2018 by less than half a percentage point, only to be reelected four years later by more than 19 points. Trump carried the state by 1.2 percentage points in 2016, expanded that margin to 3.4 points in 2020, and won by more than 13 points in 2024.

The state has also become more Republican because of a rightward shift among Hispanic voters, including in former Democratic strongholds such as Miami-Dade County.

Florida has 13.4 million registered voters, including 5.6 million Republicans and 4 million Democrats, giving Republicans an advantage of more than 1.5 million voters. But Freeder cautions that this registration edge will not necessarily translate into the same margin at the ballot box in November. Voter enthusiasm could prove decisive, he says: if Democrats turn out at higher rates, they could significantly narrow the gap. “In a sense, that’s the whole ballgame.”

MacManus adds that “regardless of what happens, Trump will continue to have a major influence on Republican politics in Florida. For Democrats to succeed in statewide elections, they need to capture a significant share of the independent vote — the no-party-affiliation voters [NPA] and those registered with minor parties.”

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