Rep. Byron Donalds cruised through a crowded Republican primary for Florida governor, powered by President Trump's early endorsement, and now faces a former Republican congressman running as a Democrat in November.
Donalds, a third-term congressman and former Florida state lawmaker, captured nearly half the vote in Tuesday's primary, defeating Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and several other challengers to claim the Republican nomination. With 79 percent of ballots counted, Just The News reported the Associated Press called the race at 8 p.m. Eastern, with Donalds holding 49 percent of the vote.
The result was never in serious doubt. Donalds led the field for months after Trump threw his weight behind the congressman in February 2025, before Donalds had even formally entered the race. That early nod from the president cleared a path through a competitive field and kept Donalds well ahead of Collins, who pitched himself as the candidate to "protect the DeSantis legacy."
Trump's social media post backing Donalds arrived in February 2025 and left little room for ambiguity. Fox News reported the president wrote:
"Byron Donalds would be a TRULY GREAT and POWERFUL Governor for Florida and, should he run, will have my complete and total endorsement. RUN, BYRON, RUN!"
Donalds announced his campaign shortly after. The endorsement carried weight partly because Donalds had backed Trump over Gov. Ron DeSantis during the 2024 Republican presidential primary, a loyalty that Trump rewarded publicly and early. The two appeared together at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July 2024, well before the governor's race took shape.
That relationship has remained a defining feature of the campaign. Donalds is running explicitly on a platform to bring the Trump agenda to Tallahassee, including immigration enforcement, affordability, deregulation, lower taxes, infrastructure investment, and completing the long-stalled Everglades restoration project.
Trump's endorsement power in the Florida primary extended beyond the governor's race. AP News noted that Rep. Cory Mills, who was notably excluded from Trump's endorsement list amid personal controversies, lost his own primary, a contrast that underscored how much the president's backing matters in Republican contests statewide.
Collins, who serves as DeSantis's lieutenant governor, built his campaign around continuity. He emphasized that DeSantis had appointed him and framed his candidacy as the natural extension of the current administration's work. But DeSantis himself never endorsed Collins in the primary, a notable absence that left the lieutenant governor without the institutional boost he needed to close the gap.
DeSantis is term-limited and cannot run again. His decision to stay on the sidelines, even as his own lieutenant governor sought the nomination, spoke to the political dynamics reshaping Republican politics at the state and national level. Trump's endorsement carried more weight than the sitting governor's implicit support.
No vote totals or specific margins for Collins or the other candidates in the field have been reported beyond Donalds' share. Fox News described Donalds as having "easily defeated" his opponents, and Breitbart reported he secured 48.7 percent of the vote against four challengers, a commanding performance in a multi-candidate primary.
The general election will pit Donalds against David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who left the party in 2018 and is now running for governor as a Democrat. Jolly has framed the race in broad terms, casting it as "a decision about what Florida becomes next." He is running on an affordability message, a platform plank that overlaps, at least in label, with part of Donalds' own agenda.
Donalds has taken a harder line on Jolly's party switch. The Fox News headline referenced Donalds calling Jolly a "Trojan horse" for the "radical left," though no verbatim quote from Donalds using that phrase appeared in the body of the report. The framing, whether or not those were Donalds' exact words, signals the kind of race Republicans intend to run: tying Jolly to the national Democratic Party and its progressive wing, regardless of his past as a Republican officeholder.
Florida has trended steadily toward Republican candidates over the past decade. Donalds enters the general election with the structural advantages that come with running in a state where the GOP has built durable margins, and with a sitting president's full-throated support behind him.
Donalds acknowledged the value of that backing directly. In comments reported by the AP, he said of Trump: "Obviously, he has the strongest following of anybody in our party."
If Donalds wins in November, he would become Florida's first Black governor and extend Republican control of the governor's mansion in a state that has become central to the party's national identity. The general election will also test whether Trump's political influence, which has reshaped Florida's political landscape in recent years, can carry a handpicked successor across the finish line in his adopted home state.
Donalds and his wife Erika rallied supporters in Boca Raton on August 16, the day before the primary. The campaign now pivots to a general election where the contrast could not be sharper: a Trump-aligned congressman running on border enforcement, deregulation, and lower taxes against a former Republican who left the party and is now asking Democrats to hand him the governor's office.
For a party that has spent years building its grip on Florida, through legislative fights, redistricting battles, and gubernatorial leadership, Donalds represents the next chapter. Whether Jolly's party-switching biography becomes an asset or a liability with Florida voters will say a great deal about where the state is headed.
Voters who switch parties to chase a friendlier electorate rarely inspire the trust of either side. Donalds, whatever his flaws, has at least been consistent about where he stands, and in a state that rewards clarity, that counts for something.