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by Mike Magnoli
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — Tomorrow is Election Day in Florida, Democrats and Republicans will choose their nominees in statewide primaries.
The biggest race on the ballot is for Governor.
Whoever wins their party's primary will go on to the General Election in November.
Republicans hold a significant voter registration advantage statewide — making the GOP nominee the early favorite.
And if the polls prove to be correct, that nominee is expected to be Byron Donalds.
President Trump endorsed Donalds last February, and when that happened, most Republican political pundits agree, it was like handing Donalds a golden ticket. To be endorsed by Trump, and so early, made Byron Donalds a star of the Republican Party and virtually unstoppable.
"He’s such a great story," said Sid Dinerstein, the former head of the Palm Beach County Republicans. "And these other guys, nobody knows who they are."
Dinerstein is talking about the rest of the Republican field, including the current Lieutenant Governor, Jay Collins. Collins has struggled to raise money and party support. James Fishback and former Fl House Speaker Paul Renner are in the same boat, only polling in the single digits.
"One guy has all the votes and all the money and nobody else seems able to get it," Dinerstein said.
Donalds is a congressman from Naples, formerly a member of Fl’s House.
He’s running on a fiscal conversative, MAGA platform and he talks often of his faith; how he went from being a troubled young man to dedicating his life to Christ. That was thanks a church group who prayed over him in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel where he waited tables.
Peter Feaman gave CBS 12 News his impression of Donalds. Feaman was part of Republican leadership in Florida and he’s an outspoken evangelical.
"Donalds is very principled, very eloquent, and he speaks the conservative’s language," Feaman said. "Byron has been on the radar screen of every grassroots Republican since he hit the scene as a state rep. twelve years ago."
For the Democrats, David Jolly is polling so far ahead of his five competitors, the look and feel of his campaign is already in General Election mode. He’s a former Republican congressman turned Democrat. He says after two DeSantis terms, the state finds itself in an affordable housing crisis, he also says the state has focused too much on culture war issues while public education has suffered.
"I think we are in a 1974, Post-Watergate moment, where enough people are saying lets burn the ships and go in a new direction." Jolly told CBS 12 News in a recent interview in Delray Beach.
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