Byron Donalds wins Florida governor race, becomes state's first Black governor

Donalds promises to continue DeSantis’s conservative policies

Republican Byron Donalds defeated Democrat David Jolly in Florida’s governor race on Nov. 3, according to an Associated Press race call cited by NPR. The 48-year-old Donalds is set to become the state’s first Black governor. Trump backed the winning campaign, which also had a sizable campaign finance war chest.

The result came against a national backdrop of Republicans growing unhappy with Trump over gas prices and the war with Iran, according to NPR. Donalds rallied with Trump just days before the election. Polls taken earlier in the year showed Trump less popular in Florida than DeSantis, and in September Donalds appeared to distance himself from Trump by taking prominent displays of the president’s name off his campaign website.

Donalds spent most of his career in the finance industry and served two terms in Congress and two terms in the Florida House. NPR described him as a rising star in the Republican Party. He began as a Democrat and left the party in 2010, became an early Trump supporter in the 2024 election and later won Trump’s backing in Florida.

During the campaign, Donalds stumped on affordability, including inflation, housing and insurance. He promised to continue the conservative policies of outgoing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. NPR reported that DeSantis remains popular in Florida and joined Donalds during the campaign.

Several polls showed a close race favoring Donalds through much of the campaign. Before the election, Florida had some 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats, while 3.3 million unaffiliated voters were up for grabs.

Jolly, 54, campaigned on a “believe in better” slogan and focused on housing, inflation, gas prices and the boom in AI data centers. On the campaign trail, he called Donalds “data center Donalds” for taking campaign contributions from industry players. Donalds introduced legislation this summer that would require data centers to generate their own power and water.

Jolly served in Congress as a Republican before leaving the party in 2018 during Trump’s first term. He changed his registration to no-party affiliation and then switched to Democrat last year. He has spent most of his career as a lawyer, lobbyist and television political analyst.

Donalds’s victory places a Republican who began in the Democratic Party in Florida’s governor’s office, making him the state’s first Black governor. It concludes a closely watched race in which both candidates made affordability central.