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By Hugh Cameron and Anna Commander
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Republican Byron Donalds has won his gubernatorial race in Florida versus Democrat David Jolly. The Associated Press called the race in Donalds' favor at 9:09 p.m. ET with 50.1 percent of the vote compared to Jolly's 48.7 percent.
The race became one of this year’s closest watched gubernatorial contests. Term limits prevented Governor Ron DeSantis from seeking reelection.
President Donald Trump’s stumping for Donalds gave a national dimension to the race. The candidacy of Jolly—a former Republican congressman turned independent turned Democrat—was also viewed as a novel challenge for the GOP.
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Trump carried the state by 13.1 points in 2024.
Florida’s Historic Gubernatorial Race
Both candidates went into Election Day hoping to make history—Jolly vying to become the first Democratic elected governor since Lawton Chiles in 1994 and Donalds hoping to be its first Black governor.
Polls appeared to favor the Republican for the majority of the race and in the final stretch. Donalds maintained a lead of 4 to 6 percentage points over Jolly in the most recent polls. The last pre-election poll from the New York Times and Siena University, conducted October 19-25 among 813 likely voters, had Donalds leading 48 percent to 44 percent. The margin of error was 3.9 percentage points.
On Tuesday morning, the polling aggregator VoteHub gave Donalds a 4.4-point edge—in line with the lead he sustained for the entire race—and a 68 percent chance of victory. Prediction markets were similarly favorable to Donalds, with Polymarket users putting his odds at 66 percent on Election Day.
Main Issues in the Contest
Above all, the Florida contest was shaped by “affordability” and how well the candidates spoke to this issue as it pertained to AI data centers, property insurance and taxes and the agenda of the Trump administration.
Florida homeowners still grapple with elevated insurance costs—a key pocketbook issue both tried to address in different ways—but the backlash against data centers in the state transformed into a salient political issue.
Jolly proposed a one-year moratorium on new facilities to allow authorities time to assess their energy and environmental implications. Donalds supported continued data center development but argued that the decision should be in the hands of locals and that developers should cover the utility costs.
And while the state has drifted right politically in recent years—evidenced by DeSantis’ 20-point reelection in 2022 and Trump’s victory in the state in 2024—it was proximity to the Republican president that appeared one of the hardest issues for Donalds to navigate.
Donalds' campaign was complicated by growing frustrations with the Trump administration over the economy and the cost of living, with Jolly at times calling him “Donald Trump's guy.”
In September, it was revealed that Donalds removed images of Trump from his campaign website—seen by some as an attempt to create distance between him and the president in the eyes of voters. However, the pair campaigned together in late October.
Donalds' win comes as Republican Ashley Moddy won her re-election campaign for U.S. Senate and as Florida Democrats pulled off shock wins in congressional races amid the state's redistricting effort.
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Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Dave Siminoff.
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