Poll finds Donalds ahead among Hispanic voters and behind among Black voters
Republican nominee Byron Donalds said he will appear with Donald Trump at Friday’s Fort Myers rally, placing Donalds alongside the president little more than a week before the 3 November election. Trump announced the Fort Myers stop on the latest leg of his late red-state tour in support of vulnerable candidates. Asked whether he would attend, Donalds replied, “Of course I’m going to be there. What kind of question is that?”
The Donalds campaign removed almost every mention of Trump from its website last month, including “enact the Trump agenda” as its top priority for governor, while Donalds largely avoided naming the president or invoking his policies on the campaign trail. The Guardian linked the website purge to Trump’s unpopularity and said the strategy appeared to be working until Trump announced the Fort Myers visit.
Donalds had appeared with Republican Sen. Ashley Moody at a joint rally the previous Friday; both are on the 3 November ballot. Some prominent Republicans have chosen to be elsewhere during Trump’s tour, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who had an unavoidable commitment during the president’s San Antonio visit this month.
The Guardian presented the closely watched Donalds-Jolly contest as a gauge of the strength of a Democratic resurgence in a state that had veered reliably red in recent years. A photo caption placed Donalds on stage at the midterm Republican convention in Dallas last month, with supporters waving placards as he spoke. Registered Republican voters in Florida outnumber Democrats by more than 1.5 million, yet the contest remains competitive. A Donalds victory would allow him to succeed Ron DeSantis, whose endorsement has replaced Trump’s on Florida television ads, and extend Republican control of the governor’s mansion dating to January 1999.
At the previous Friday’s rally at Broward County’s Green Glades West ranch, a private ranch lodge near the Everglades, The Guardian described the audience as mostly white and middle-aged or older and said the audience warmly received the speech. The report described Broward County as Florida’s bluest county.
Donalds blamed Joe Biden and what he called the radical policies of Democrats for affordability problems, even though neither Biden nor the Democrats had wielded power in Washington for almost two years. He also targeted Zohran Mamdani, whom The Guardian described as New York’s democratic socialist mayor, and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Donalds also devoted a lengthy passage to attacking Jolly.
Donalds did not mention Trump, the wars in Iran and Ukraine, gas prices or unaffordable healthcare premiums. The Guardian linked a range of issues to Trump’s approval rating falling to new lows. Any added financial burden on Florida families, Donalds said, could be laid at “the craziness from the previous administration.”
A reporter asked whether Donalds’s silence represented a deliberate distance from Trump and some of the president’s less popular policies, including policies on immigration that were polling poorly with Florida’s large Latino and Hispanic voting blocs. Donalds did not answer the question. “This is what I’m talking about. You guys are so caught up in, ‘Do you agree with this, do you agree with that?’” he said. “I was giving a speech about my campaign for governor because I’m running for governor.”
Political analyst Larry Sabato said the distancing would be quickly forgotten if Donalds won and called it a campaign tactic. “Donalds is super-Maga. This is just a campaign tactic being used by quite a few Republicans all across the country,” said Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and author of the election analysis website Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “Look, Donalds has no choice but to make the most out of Trump, but not be devoured by him. And you know it’s not easy to do. You’re walking a very fine line there.”
On Thursday, one day before Trump’s Fort Myers visit, Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, told a press conference that Donalds was not fooling voters. “Even when Byron Donalds tried to distance himself from Trump by scrubbing the president from his website, he went running back into Daddy’s arms within hours, but there is no hiding from this presidency,” Fried said. “Tomorrow, Donalds and the rest of the Florida Republicans will once again reveal their true loyalties. The people of our state are tired of spineless politicians who kiss the ring and fall in line instead of standing up.”
Democratic leaders pointed to Donalds’s positions during almost six years in Congress. They said he refused to certify Biden’s 2020 election win, argued that undocumented immigrants were not entitled to due process, denied that climate change was human-made, championed abortion restrictions and opposed transgender women and girls in sport.
To win and become Florida’s first Black governor, Donalds cannot afford to lose large parts of the voting alliance that helped Trump win the state in three successive presidential elections, including Black and Hispanic voters. An NBC6/Telemundo 51 survey published the previous week found Hispanic voters favored Donalds 48%-43%, while Jolly held a 76%-10% advantage among Black voters. The report said Hispanic support for sticking with the Republican cause appeared to be wavering and that Black support for Donalds appeared to have slipped.
Democrats nationally viewed the race as tightening and, on Tuesday, pledged an extra $1 million to bolster Jolly’s late campaigning. Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Fox News still list the contest as “leans Republican.”
The ranch rally was hosted by environmentalist and businessman “Alligator” Ron Bergeron, a close DeSantis ally. Several attendees said they were unbothered by Donalds’s avoidance of Trump. “We’re all on the same page with our president supporting what is right,” said Luis Breton, a Republican voter and U.S. citizen originally from the Soviet Union.
Stella Patrick, a Fort Lauderdale retiree, said she saw Donalds and Moody as fighting for Florida’s interests while Trump was busy “defending the nation.” “Byron Donalds doesn’t need Trump’s blessing to win, and I’m happy he spoke about what he’s going to do for us in Florida. That’s what matters to me,” Patrick said.
Sabato said Florida could no longer be considered a purple state. “It’s not even close,” he said. “Trump won it easily, and so you can’t underestimate the Republican vote there, or overestimate the Democratic vote.”