Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly just logged one of the best fundraising weeks of his campaign. Republican Byron Donalds still tripled it.
In the week ending Oct. 9, Jolly raised more than $1.97 million between his campaign account and his Florida 2026political committee. Of that, $1,008,073 was hard money. The remainder was committee cash.
This comes after the best fundraising week of the campaign for him, in which he raised roughly $2.7 million.
A total of 10,941 individual contributions came through to the campaign account during the week in question, plus more than $241,000 in state matching funds, while the bigger checks went to Florida 2026. The National Education Association gave $250,000 while AFSCME donated $200,000.
Jolly has raised more than $21 million this cycle. He has spent more than $17 million, including more than $3.6 million during the latest week of reporting.
Meanwhile, Donalds continues to set new records for fundraising in a statewide race.
During the week ending Oct. 9, he raised more than $5.9 million between his political committee and his campaign account, with the GEO Group and Fighting for Florida’s Families chipping in $1 million each. He has raised more than $146 million this cycle.
And he’s spent more than $110 million already, including more than $6.9 million in the week in question.
Jolly has said he’s unfazed by the fundraising imbalance in part because of his broad base of support.
“We have continued to see fundraising improve dramatically. There are some days now where we have $1 million days, not because of the national party, but because of singular donors or because our small-dollar donor campaign is shattering records. You can see it in the state matching funds; we are at two times to three times what Byron is bringing in because our small-dollar donor community is really growing,” Jolly said at a news conference in Tallahassee last week.
While the national party has not invested in the campaign in the way Jolly hoped, the Democratic ticket still has the money to carry out its strategy. With Early Voting beginning around the state soon, that has to be considered a best-case scenario.
A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. His work also can be seen in the Washington Post, the New York Post, the Washington Times, and National Review, among other publications. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski
October 17, 2026 at 1:48 pm
David Jolly gets contributions from real Floridians. Byron Donalds gets money from Big Data corporations that already have him in their pocket.
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