From USA Today:
The math says no. The mood says maybe. Can Dems win Florida governor?
Republicans have some clear advantages in the Florida 2026 midterms but President Trump’s unpopularity has opened the door for Democrats not seen in nearly a decade.
- Despite a 1.5 million Republican voter registration advantage, Florida Democrats hope voter dissatisfaction with costs and national politics could lead to an upset.
- Key issues in the race include data centers, home insurance reform, and immigration.
- To win, Democrats must achieve massive turnout, win over independent voters, and flip some disaffected Republicans.
The mood shifted in Democrat gubernatorial candidate David Jolly’s campin mid-September.
Republican rival U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds for weeks had defined Jolly, a former Republican and the definition of a Florida white moderate, as a radical socialist who supported gender-changing surgeries on children.
Donalds was tapping into his $120 million campaign war chest to saturate television and social media as he aimed to become Florida's first Black governor. Jolly has raised $14.6 million.
He was on the Sunday morning news shows. He was a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. He put his wife, Erika — an advocate for examining the use of AI in the classroom and a charter school zealot — in sitcom-like ad buys.
But the polling shows Donalds’ “please-like-me tour” (as Jolly called it) wasn’t working. Many had the race moving toward Jolly, with some calling it a toss-up.
Jolly compared Donalds to Gov. Ron DeSantis in his 2024 presidential run, when DeSantis bottomed out in the first primary in Iowa.
Ron DeSantis goes to Iowa with $100 million, destined to be the next president and doesn’t win a single county,” Jolly said. “The more he spent, the more people got to know him, the less they liked him.”
Jolly’s senior campaign adviser Mark Riddle said, “We felt the momentum shift after the primary. People really started paying attention.”
Donalds then tried to strong-arm Jolly into scripted debate forums of his picking, and the Democrat refused. Donalds then removed all prominent references to President Donald Trump from his website, now claiming that Jolly wants to levy a $1,000 hurricane tax — which Jolly refutes.
“You can’t debate a liar,” the Democrat now likes to say.
Florida has had a Republican governor every year since 1999
Can Florida Democrats win in 2026 after three decades of futility? Can the state party overcome a massive fundraising deficit, or will Republicans’ cash and voter registration breakwater hold?
“It’s a red state, and Republicans win. This election could be different,” said Sean Freeder, a political scientist and pollster at the University of North Florida. “In October, I have a pretty good feeling I’m going to get results that are maybe still expecting Donalds to win but not by much.”
Democrats are competing up and down the ballot after scoring major victories in special elections. Whether it's a mirage or not is the drama of the Florida midterms.
“Anybody who is on the ballot ought to be concerned if they have a Democratic opponent,” Republican state Sen. Don Gaetz told Politico.
The winds keep blowing in favor of the Democrats. The Wall Street Journal reported Donalds told donors he needs even more money because the race tight with Jolly. The backlash among Hispanics to Trump's immigration crackdown can not be underestimated with a new NBC/Telemundo poll showing Democrats with a 24-point lead among Latino voters when asked who should control Congress, double the margin in 2024,
he last Democratic governor elected in Florida was Lawton Chiles in 1994. Two years later, Republicans took over the state House and Senate and now have a solid supermajority. Republicans have a staggering 1.5 million registered voter lead.
But the 2026 midterm finds voters in a sour mood with costs — groceries, health care, insurance — depleting their savings. And then there is the staggering unpopularity of Trump, who mocks affordability, started a war with Iran, and appears more occupied with building a gilded ballroom, Democrats argue.
“This is emerging like a 1974 post-Watergate moment, where voters are saying, ‘Burn the ships. Let’s go in a new direction,'” Jolly said.
After President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Democrats picked up 49 seats in the U.S. House, four seats in the U.S. Senate and four governorships.
Jolly is a former Republican. He is a former Independent. He is aiming to draw from both those bases as Trump proves to be the secret weapon for Democrats in a state the president carried by 13 points.
“They’re rejecting MAGA. They look at Donalds, and he is a vessel for MAGA; he is a vessel for Trump. His policies are also furthering preemption of local control. The data center is very real,” Jolly told USA TODAY Network-Florida.
Could data centers be the issue that turns the election in Jolly's favor?
The wind is behind the Democrats this midterm on key issues.
Jolly wants a moratorium on data centers and police surveillance cameras. Donalds promised local control on the data center issue and cited sheriffs in support of Flock cameras.
Jolly denounces immigration crackdowns by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Donalds says immigrants are behind the measles outbreak.
Jolly wants to reform the home insurance industry, cutting wind risk out of policies and replacing that with a state-backed sovereign catastrophic fund. Donalds wants deregulation, less government intervention, saying the free market will take care of the problem.
he data center issue can not be underestimated. Jolly took a break from the campaign trail and traveled to northern Virginia — the epicenter of these AI behemoths — in September.
“I saw a community almost completely wiped out,” he said. “The legacy residential is dealing with noise pollution, with health concerns, four kids in a home treated for respiratory conditions. Someone had to fire-sale their home for $80,000 less than listing.”
Utility giants, which benefit from the power-sucking data centers, have poured $1.78 million into Donalds’ campaign. AI and tech billionaires, like Elon Musk, have also contributed about $3 million to a Donalds PAC to run campaign ads.
“My concern is the same special interests that have controlled Tallahassee under 30 years of Republicanism already control Donalds,” Jolly said. “I’m running as a candidate who is unbought.”
Why voter registration has changed the game in Florida
Democrats have seen this close-but-no-cigar scenario too many times. DeSantis edged progressive Democrat Andrew Gillum by 0.4% in 2018. U.S. Sen. Rick Scott won three elections last decade — two governor seats and one Senate — by about 1%
What’s different now is voter registration. Call it DeSantis’ army.
It was only in 2020 that Democrats had a slight voter registration advantage in the Sunshine State, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and DeSantis — by a genius PR stunt — claimed the “Free State of Florida” was open for business.
“COVID changed Florida politics 180 degrees,” said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida professor emeritus who is a nationally recognized expert on Florida politics. “A lot of people who moved here were middle-class people with kids who didn’t want their kids to have to go to lockdown schools.”
These voters are fiercely dedicated to DeSantis — damn the $1 billion in taxpayer money that went to Alligator Alcatraz or the $10 million lost in the Hope Florida scandal. The voter registration advantage these new residents fueled serves as a firewall for the state GOP.
DeSantis, who is term-limited, has endorsed the “Republican slate” but has been icy toward Donalds since the congressman endorsed Trump in 2024.
The governor has been particularly cynical this cycle, lukewarm toward the Amendment 3 property tax amendment. In Tampa, where Republicans gathered Labor Day weekend, the governor said the voter registration advantage only works if the party faithful vote.
“That’s only true if everybody shows up. Some people have checked out. Don’t take your foot off the gas.”
GOP Chair Evan Power echoed that concern: “There’s an element of apathy, that people think in Florida that we will always be controlled by Republicans.”
Democrats to win will have to breach the house that DeSantis built
Aubrey Jewett, political scientist at the University of Central Florida, said there are signs Democrats can pull off an upset in the Sunshine State.
“You have to get massive Democratic turnout, and you have to get a virtual supermajority of independents,” he said.
“They’re going to have to make major inroads,” MacManus added.
Jolly’s strategy isn’t limited to registered Democrats. Jolly and down-ballot Democrats must flip those undecided Republicans before they come back home.
He is particularly focused on independent voters and disaffected Republicans. No Party Affiliation voters accounted for nearly 25% of the electorate and often vote their pocketbook.
The Democrat says what he is seeing on the campaign trail is what he calls the Jolly-DeSantis voter.
“They would vote for Ron DeSantis over David Jolly, but they are not going to vote for Byron Donalds over David Jolly,” he said.
Could Angie Nixon's surge be a promising sign in the governor's race for Democrats?
The energy on the Democratic side can be found at any campaign stop by the U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon. The Jacksonville native used gumshoe politics to upset Alexander Vindman in the primary, despite being outspent 16-to-1, and is now aiming for incumbent U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody.
Since her primary win, Nixon has become a national populist figure, proof money can’t buy elections.
“We proved that everyday people are more powerful than corporations, special interest groups and big-money PACs,” said Nixon, a former union organizer.
While Republicans hammer Nixon for joining the Democratic Socialists of America, Jolly sees her campaign as all positive for the party.
“Angie renews an enthusiasm within the Democratic base that is very helpful to me — really helpful,” Jolly said. “She was in all the rooms talking about housing, healthcare, and education. A warrior leaving it all on the field, and I think that energy helped our campaign a lot.”
Still, when the dust settled after the primary, Republicans ended up with a 437,723-vote advantage, an indication Republicans may indeed come home in November.
A Sept. 24 poll by Stetson University found just that, with substantial leads for Donalds (12%) and Moody (11%). The Jolly campaign called the survey a “garbage poll” with an 830-voter panel unrepresentative of the state electorate.
It contradicted other polls, including Decision Desk HQ — an independent elections forecasting service — describing the race as a toss-up just one day earlier.
Governor? Senator? Chief Dems would be happy just to get out of the superminority
Nikki Fried is in a job few would envy. As head of the state Democratic Party, she keeps sinking into the abyss every cycle; she must remain endlessly upbeat and a cheerleader. But Fried is also a pragmatist. This is Florida after all.
She points to 46 seats the party has flipped in the past 18 months from the mayor's offices in Key West and Miami to state legislative seats near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Tampa Bay.
“This is not just one-offs. This is a movement,” Fried said in an interview from New York where she was raising money for women candidates. “Florida Democrats are making a comeback, and we’re going to pick up some incredible wins and shock the nation.”
Fried said the difference is organizing. The party has worked in all 67 counties year-round, recruiting candidates up and down the ballot. “This has never happened in Florida politics, on the Democratic side, at least.”
But Fried, the last Democrat to be elected to a major state office as agricultural commissioner, knows the landscape and has privately told people that the lack of money coming from a cash-strapped national Democratic Party makes her task Herculean. When pressed, her goals were more modest.
“I’ve been in this position for 3 1⁄2 years, and we’ve made a plan to make sure that we’re making progress, that we’re building an infrastructure that can sustain blue waves like 2026 and real power building for 2028,” she said.
“The reality is we’re going to get ourselves out of the super minority this cycle. That is the number one priority.”
Democrats need to net one seat in the Senate and at least five, maybe six, seats in the House.
If Republicans take winning for granted, Florida Democrats take losing as a foregone conclusion.
Democratic activist Dr. Fergie Reid, whose Virginia-based 90-for-90 helped recruit some of the candidates Fried is talking about, says the party suffers from “Stockholm syndrome,” worrying about how it is perceived by the longtime ruling party.
“Democrats keep waiting for Republicans to give them permission to go to the bathroom,” he said.
Now Reid was working hard in 2024 to end the supermajority in the Florida Legislature when Democrats got shellacked. He says Donalds’ likeability is so low that many Republicans will just skip November’s vote. And he points to Democrat Abigail Spanberger defeating a Black Republican candidate, Winsome Earl-Sears, in Virginia last year.
“It’s got to send chills up and down Republicans’ backs that people like Angie Nixon have a chance to win, and David Jolly has a chance to win, and (Democratic CFO candidate) Annette Taddeo has a chance to win,” Reid said.
All of this happens despite the usual dysfunction in the Democratic Party. Prominent Black Democrats have said they are voting for Donalds, and other Black political leaders have decried the campaign’s outreach to underserved communities.
On the flip side, Donalds lost 17 rural white counties. Hispanics upset with Trump’s position on immigration are also up for grabs.
“Latinos, at least what we’ve seen, seem to have gravitated in the state of Florida and elsewhere away from support for Trump,” pollster Freeder said. “So I think this is going to be something that Donalds’ campaign has to work on through the general election season.”
Trump remains the secret weapon for Democrats.
Have Jolly and the Dems made some unforced errors that could cost them come November?
Some political analysts said Jolly made an unforced error in saying he won’t debate Donalds; missing an opportunity for the underfunded Democrat to display his wiles in front of a statewide audience.
But Donalds had the state GOP shield him from having to debate his opponents in the Republican primary and Jolly has accused him of bad faith in really wanting to meet.
Vanessa Brito, a Miami political data analyst, criticized the Jolly campaign for lacking South Florida outreach.
“I’m not talking about Jolly going to speak to the Democrats' clubs throughout the state. I am talking about knocking on doors, showing up at homeowners associations, at assisted living facilities, and community events, and campaigning — truly campaigning,” Brito said.
She has seen Republicans, though, go into Black churches, go into the Haitian communities and increase voter registration activity.
She said Jolly also erred by introducing his running mate, Gwen Graham, before the primary, squandering a news cycle. Donalds, on the contrary, made a splash by picking Cuban-American State Rep. Bryan Avila and is hoping tagging Jolly as a socialist will resonate with Hispanics in Miami-Dade and shore up the Latino vote.
“You need South Florida, and you’re not even putting out a tweet in Spanish. You deserve to lose then,” she said.
Puzzling still, Jolly also brought in some of Vindman’s people after that campaign's spectacular failure against Nixon in the primary, Brito said.
Jolly refuted that criticism, saying he has participated in 300 town halls across the state. He said the problem for state Dems is simple: lack of cash. He again appealed to the national party leaders to support him and Democratic candidates down ballot.
“We don’t have the resources to combat the lies, and that hurts,” Jolly said. “I’ll tell you the only way we lose this race is if national Democrats once again take a pass on Florida.”
John Pacenti is the Government Impact Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at https://palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
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