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TALLAHASSEE — The primaries for Florida’s next governor look like foregone conclusions with the presumptive nominees — Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly — commanding double-digit leads and already campaigning against each other.
Barring any major upsets, the Aug. 18 primary is more like a race for second place.
“I think it’d be a shock if either Donalds or Jolly lost their respective primaries,” said Kyle Kondit, managing editor for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter out of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
“In some ways, both Donalds and Jolly seem like they have been looking ahead to the general election anyway—Donalds even challenged Jolly to general election debates,” Kondit said.
Jolly waved off the debate challenge, responding to Donalds on social media with “Get through your primary and we’ll talk.” But he is already taking jabs at the GOP frontrunner.
Donalds’ call to debate Jolly provoked outcries from the three other GOP candidates who are trailing him but still garner some support in polls of likely GOP voters, as he refused to debate them at a state Republican forum in June. That trio of Republicans, though running out of time and money, are campaigning as if they still have a chance.
The Democratic race is far quieter, with Jolly holding a 36-point lead over State Rep. Dotie Joseph of Miami-Dade County, his most recognizable rival. Dayna Marie Foster, a Broward County teacher endorsed by the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, is polling a few points ahead of Joseph, but still well behind Jolly. The three other candidates in the race are not mentioned in available polls.
Jolly would have had a more serious challenge from Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, but Demings dropped out in June after receiving a cancer diagnosis.
Eight years ago, the contest for the governor’s mansion was wide open — until President Donald Trump put his thumb on the scales by endorsing a relatively unknown Ron DeSantis over establishment favorite Adam Putnam, then the state’s agricultural commissioner.
Democrats saw a similar upset when Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum beat former congresswoman Gwen Graham, the daughter of Florida’s popular Gov. Bob Graham, who died in 2024. This year, Jolly has picked Graham as his running mate, another sign that he’s already looking to November.
A former Tampa Bay area Republican congressman, Jolly left the party in 2018 due to disagreements over Trump and then registered as a Democrat in April 2025 before filing to run for governor. With Graham as his running mate, he hopes his centrist ticket will attract both loyal Democrats as well as moderate Republicans unhappy with the country’s direction under Trump.
Joseph, first elected to the House in 2018, has poked fun at Jolly’s late conversion to the Democratic Party, pointing out his voting record in Congress “has been pretty much the opposite on the key issues that are important to me, and what I believe is the opposite to many Floridians.”
Jolly has raised $9.4 million as of July 24, far less than his GOP rival.
Donalds, a Congressman from Naples and a former member of the Florida House, would be the first Black governor of Florida, if he wins.
He is buoyed by Trump’s endorsement and has collected $103 million in contributions as of July 31, slightly more than half of the $200 million DeSantis raised for his successful 2022 re-election bid but about the same as the $100 million the 2018 governor’s race cost.
Besides challenging Jolly to three debates, Donalds has run attack ads against the Democratic frontrunner, portraying the former Republican as “way too liberal” for Florida. Jolly, in turn, has criticized Florida’s culture wars, especially its attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, and blamed Donalds for his part in those efforts.
Polls show Donalds holding a six-to-seven point lead over Jolly if they face off in the general election.
While the Democratic primary doesn’t offer much in the way of fireworks, the Republican primary has enough infighting to rival a reality show — with the candidates taking shots at each other and Donalds, trading personal insults online, sniping at each other during unsanctioned debates and causing scenes at other canddidates’ campaign events. GOP candidate James Fishback, for example, had to be escorted out of a Donalds campaign event in Collier County after getting into a shouting and shoving match with a bodyguard.
Former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, another Republican gubernatorial candidate, has openly criticized the bitter feuding as “embarrassing” and full of “parlor room antics.”
Donalds is polling on average at 49% of Republican voters, with Lt. Gov. Jay Collins a distant second with 10 to 13% of the vote. The most recent poll, conducted by the James Madison Institute, had Collins at 18%, one of his best showings in gubernatorial polls.
Collins and the others trail far behind Donalds in fundraising too. Collins, for example, has raised close to $10.5 million and spent all but $713,000 as of July 31, according to state campaign finance records.
All four candidates agree on many issues, including immigration enforcement, addressing affordability and insurance costs, expanding educational opportunities and lowering or eliminating property taxes — an issue that will be presented to voters on the November ballot.
They have clashed over the state regulation of data centers, however, with Fishback and Renner, who oppose them, accusing Donalds and Collins of being hypocrites who support their construction but with regulations. Donalds says he supports a congressional measure to require the centers to use private electricity and water service.
Donalds has been endorsed by appointees of DeSantis — Attorney General James Uthmeier, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Sen. Ashley Moody.
Meanwhile, Collins continues to tell people on the campaign trail that DeSantis was choosing his successor when he tapped Collins to replace Jeanette Nunez as lieutenant governor.
“When he appointed me, he said, ‘Jay is day one ready.’ I am the only candidate with experience in the Office of the Governor, and I am prepared to lead,” Collins posted on his Facebook page.
But with less than two weeks to go before the primary, DeSantis had not endorsed anyone.
“I am not involved in any primaries,” DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday. At the same time, he said that Renner would make a good governor, walking back earlier an earlier comment that his candidacy was “ill-advised.”
Collins, a former Green Beret who has only held public office for four years, has been talking up his military record, especially the fact he lost a leg in combat. He also has been pumping out attack ads about Donalds’ college-era misdemeanor charge at age 18 for marijuana possession, which was dismissed after he agreed to a pretrial diversion program and paid a $150 fine — and a 20-year-old charge against one of Donalds’ campaign advisors that was never prosecuted.
Collins recently posted an ad on social media comparing his timeline over the past 30 years with Donalds. While he was training for combat, for example, Donalds was dealing drugs, it says. Donalds admitted in a CBS News interview that he sold drugs in college but was not arrested for dealing. An Florida Department of Law Enforcement criminal background check found no such charges or convictions in the state.
Collins has also been engaged in a war of words and litigation with Fishback, the Gen Z candidate whose inflammatory comments have gained him a lot of media attention. Collins sued Fishback challenging his residency qualifications for governor.
Fishback ultimately won the legal challenge, convincing a Leon County circuit judge that he is a lifelong resident of Florida who never gave up his residency during a four-year period when he occasionally lived in Washington D.C., as well as voted and brought property in that city.
The lawsuit gave Fishback a platform to criticize Collins as a carpetbagger who moved to Florida from Montana and barely squeaked by on the seven-year residency requirement himself.
Yet Fishback trails his competitors in fundraising, with barely over $1.6 million. And he has spent nearly all of it as of July 24.
He remains tied or just behind Collins in most polls, although surveys show he leads the pack among young adult voters — polling around 32% with the 18-to-34 crowd.
He’s managed to connect with Gen Z and millennials over their concerns about housing costs and jobs, using nontraditional means like social media and college rallies to engage younger voters. He also has a penchant for slinging racial and anti-Semitic slurs that earned him the title of the “Groyper” candidate, labeling Donalds a “slave” to his donors and calling for the United States to stop sending money to Israel.
“I do think there will be national interest in how much support Fishback gets and where that support comes from, given polling that sometimes suggests he will do best with younger Republicans,” Kondik said.
Polling behind the other three is Renner, who helped get many key policies of DeSantis’ across the finish line in 2023 — legislation that became part of the DeSantis platform in his failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.
Renner’s candidacy has all the hallmarks of an establishment candidate, not surprising given his four terms in the Legislature. He’s raised $6.5 million, more than Fishback, yet trails his three main rivals, garnering only 2%-to-3% on average. One outlier poll shows Renner with 18.8%.
Renner is holding back resources for a last minute push across the finish line, said Brett Doster, his campaign manager.
“In the world of politics there is no second place,” Doster said. “There is winning and nothing else.”
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