Republican Rep. Byron Donalds is projected to win the race for Florida governor, making history as the state’s first Black governor and the first Black Republican governor ever in the U.S.
The three-term congressman defeated Democrat David Jolly, maintaining nearly three decades of Republican control over the governor’s mansion and succeeding term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The race had been a close call in polls for months, with averages in the final week showing Donalds marginally ahead by about 4 percentage points, according to an Oct. 28 New York Times/Siena University poll of all likely voters.
Cook Political Report, an elections analysis team that often rates races with a likely outcome, last rated the contest “Lean Republican” in early October.
But Donalds had come into the race with a key endorsement from President Donald Trump, who backed Donalds for governor in February 2025, several days before Donalds formally entered the race and launched his campaign.
His pitch to voters largely echoed DeSantis-era policies, arguing that low taxes, limited regulation and a tough-on-crime approach have fueled Florida’s growth. On the campaign trail, he also leaned on culture-war themes, rejecting an identity-based appeal to voters and vowing to keep fighting “woke” ideology in schools and state government.
The Republican also spent the past year and a half with a massive campaign chest advantage, heavily out-fundraising and outspending Jolly and holding nearly $33 million in cash on hand through affiliated PACs by late October.
Donalds, 48, will take office in January alongside his running mate Bryan Avila, a state senator from Miami-Dade County, but will inherit rising affordability issues in the Sunshine State. Florida has some of the highest average homeowner’s insurance costs in the nation, an issue that was central to both campaigns.