Donalds builds Florida governor bid on Brooklyn-to-Naples transformation

Arrests, Cracker Barrel conversion and 2008 crisis drove his political shift

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Rep. Byron Donalds’s bid for Florida governor is built on a personal transformation story that stretches from crack vials on the corners of his Crown Heights, Brooklyn, neighborhood through two arrests as a young man in Florida, a parking-lot religious conversion outside a Cracker Barrel, and a political shift driven by the 2008 financial crisis. The 47-year-old three-term Republican congressman is deploying that biography as the centerpiece of his campaign against Democrat David Jolly.

Donors have funneled more than $130 million into Donalds’s race, and the congressman is still expected to win a contest that would make him Florida’s first Black governor if he defeats Jolly in November. He would follow just three other Black governors elected in the state since Reconstruction, all Democrats.

The contest is taking place as Republicans nationally contend with a tightening political environment. That tension surfaced last month when Trump learned that the Donalds campaign had scrubbed prominent mentions of him from the candidate’s website, according to people familiar with the events. To calm the president, aides showed him a tweet in which Donalds minimized the change and appeared beaming alongside Trump in the Oval Office. That satisfied Trump, who went on to warn that Donalds risked losing if he dropped him, the people familiar said.

The episode illustrates the bind facing Republicans who owe their political careers to Trump. That is partly why Donalds, after gingerly pulling back from Trump in recent weeks, made plans to appear in Florida with the president in the final stretch of a race that has become uncomfortably competitive for the GOP.

Florida’s economic picture has added to the pressure. A 1.67 million-person population surge since the pandemic has helped push inflation above the national average in some places. Voters cite the threat of job losses from artificial intelligence, the inaccessibility of the housing market and the high price of gas, groceries and healthcare as reasons to want a new party in charge of the state Trump and term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis transformed into the epicenter of American conservatism. In South Florida, Trump’s immigration enforcement has triggered backlash among Hispanic voters.

Those shifts had Donalds’s top donors feeling nervous when they gathered at a private retreat at the oceanfront Fontainebleau hotel here last month. Donalds, once expected to win comfortably over Jolly, told donors over a steak dinner that the contest was a battle, according to several attendees, and his pollster, Tony Fabrizio, later disavowed the group of any notion of a big win. Trump was a “double-edged sword” for Republicans, Fabrizio said, in that he was the biggest motivator of turnout on both sides. With the president’s approval rating dipping, Fabrizio told donors, the dynamic was risky for Donalds.

That helps explain why Donalds did not mention Trump in his GOP primary victory speech, why he has countered the president to say AI should be regulated by the states, and why he voiced concern about Trump’s pledge to give every adult $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms. It is also why Donalds has begun emphasizing another endorsement — that of DeSantis, who is more popular than Trump in Florida.

In strategic conversations, campaign advisers discussed creating a modest amount of space between Donalds and Trump after the primary to reach more general election voters, according to people familiar with the discussions, but not enough distance to alienate the president. The morning after the fundraising dinner, Donalds defended the website change as driven by a sharper focus on Florida issues. “We wanted to make sure the website reflected that,” he said, adding that Trump’s presence in the state would provide a “jolt of energy.” Donors said they left the retreat feeling reassured.

Donalds’s strategy to win the governor’s race is to campaign on his transformation from cash-strapped Brooklyn transplant who had scrapes with the law into a successful business-school graduate who clawed his way up the political ladder. Raised by a single mother, Donalds came to Florida on a Greyhound bus, donated plasma for money and waited tables at a Cracker Barrel, where he says he had a literal come-to-Jesus experience. Republicans are counting on him to rebuild the multiracial coalition that put Trump in office but has since drifted from the party.

At 6 foot 2 inches tall, with a disarming smile, Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses and an easy command of Jay-Z and Drake lyrics, Donalds projects an extroverted affability that belies a competitive and at times nerdy side, those close to him say. Rep. Kat Cammack, also a Florida Republican, called him a “negative reinforcement” person who converts criticism into fuel. His wife, Erika Donalds, said she has to remind him that a congressman should not yell at referees during their three sons’ sporting events. His theory of conservatism is rooted in a book by 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat.

“He’s going to be a transformative figure,” said John Stemberger, a Florida conservative activist. “He didn’t come from money or power. He kind of figured it out on his own.”

Donalds grew up with two sisters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, surrounded by what he described as the trappings of the inner city. “I remember going to baseball practice and seeing crack vials on the corner,” Donalds recalled. His mother, a hospital coordinator, sought scholarships so he could attend private school.

Not long after arriving in Florida, Donalds was arrested at age 18 on a misdemeanor marijuana charge and at 20 on a felony bribery charge, the details of which have been expunged. His mother wanted him to come home, but he stayed in Florida, where, he says, his life took another turn in 2001. A group of women who attended a church revival showed up at the Cracker Barrel where he worked, and Donalds says he heard an internal voice telling him to stop running from God. He said he followed them outside, where the women prayed over him. “I gave my life to Christ in that parking lot,” Donalds said. His first wife, Bisa Hall, has cast doubt on the story.

After graduating from Florida State University, Donalds followed his now-wife, Erika, to Naples, where he got a job as a bank teller.

Donalds was a Democrat, but his political views were shifting, driven by the 2008 financial crisis. His wife recalled them watching CNBC in 2009 and seeing commentator Rick Santelli’s rant against the bank bailouts that helped spark the tea party movement. Easy lending was evident in Naples, where the couple saw neighbors overextending themselves. “We were like, this isn’t fair. We’re paying our bills,” Erika Donalds said.

Byron Donalds joined the Naples tea party and read books including Bastiat’s “The Law” that shaped his outlook.

“People think he’s this cool guy from Brooklyn,” said Harrison Fields, a former congressional aide. “But he’s nerdy by nature. He has a foundational conservative background that was not molded by anyone of this generation.”

After a failed run for Congress in 2012, Donalds won a state House seat and drew on his own educational experience to pass legislation expanding school choice. That overlapped with a lucrative career his wife launched around charter schools, which drew criticism about conflicts of interest. Erika Donalds said she left an investment-firm career because she cared deeply about education.

Donalds was an early Trump opponent, writing on social media in 2011, “Trump won’t run. Thank God!” when Trump flirted with a presidential bid, and later saying Trump “cares more about himself than the country.” But as Trump overtook the party, Donalds embraced him. By the time Donalds ran for Congress in 2020, he described himself as a “Trump-supporting, gun-owning, liberty-loving, pro-life, politically incorrect Black man.”

After winning, he sought membership in the largely Democratic Congressional Black Caucus but was rejected after voting against legislation to crack down on police misconduct and refusing to certify President Biden’s 2020 victory. The scrape gave Donalds national attention as a dogged Trump defender, and fundraising poured in.

Donalds cemented his relationship with Trump when he snubbed DeSantis to endorse Trump in the 2024 Republican primary and became one of Trump’s most visible campaign-trail surrogates. Trump rewarded the move shortly after retaking the White House, firing off a social-media post endorsing Donalds for governor. The post crushed the gubernatorial hopes of other Republicans, including DeSantis’s wife.

Donalds was at a fundraising dinner for a friend running for office when the endorsement dropped. His phone started blowing up, but he ignored it — until the ring tone he had set for Trump went off.

“You’re going to like what I just did,” Erika Donalds recalled Trump telling him.

Trump considered Donalds for his vice presidential pick in 2024, resides in his backyard at Mar-a-Lago and calls about once a month. Trump is the rare person who prompts Donalds to interrupt family gatherings around the fire pit at his Naples home to answer his phone, and Donalds has assigned the president a custom ring tone so he would never miss the call.

“He’s paying attention to everything,” Donalds said of Trump.

At campaign stops, Donalds tells his origin story, heavy on early financial struggles, as proof that Florida is the land of opportunity. “People in our state are frustrated, and I totally understand that,” he said. “But the way through that is you can’t build a wall.”

Jolly, his Democratic opponent, said he wants the state to keep attracting new residents. “But we can’t become the Hamptons,” he said. “Because that’s what is happening right now. There is a loss of hope.”

That tension was evident on Labor Day, when Donalds worked the crowd at a Florida State football tailgate, posing for selfies as smoke from grilled burgers hovered in the stifling air. All around him were students facing an uncertain job market and a high cost of living in a state once known as a beacon of affordability. “The economy is really shifting under our feet,” Donalds said.

“No one wants to hire, plus it is very competitive,” said Alexis Mai, 21, a marketing major who has not lined up a job and worries about AI. Josh Davis, 22, who is entering graduate school, blamed the war in Iran for higher gas prices. “Every time I go to a grocery store, I’m spending at least 30 bucks, 40 bucks,” he said.

Donalds had a prescription for them and the other students: develop a skill set, start networking, connect with a business owner — and just don’t turn to socialism.

Despite the tightening of the race, the 47-year-old three-term congressman is still expected to win, catapulting him into a top tier of MAGA power brokers who will help determine the party’s direction once Trump leaves office. Some allies are already talking him up as a future presidential contender.