Byron Donalds and David Jolly secured their parties’ nominations for Florida governor and will face each other in November.
Donalds, 47, a three-term Republican congressman from Naples, captured 47.8% of the vote in Tuesday’s crowded GOP primary, nearly doubling up Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, 25.2%, at a Universal Studios resort hotel in Orlando. Far-right former investor James Fishback, 31, finished a distant third with 10.5%, followed by former state House Speaker Paul Renner at 8.5%. Jolly, a former Republican congressman who left the party in 2018 and registered as a Democrat in 2025, won the Democratic primary with 61.6% of the vote.
“The primary is over,” Donalds told supporters at his victory party. “Tonight we put aside our differences. Tonight we are one united Republican Party.”
Donalds was always the heavy favorite to win the GOP nomination, running more than 30 percentage points ahead of his challengers in the polls since October, according to the RealClearPolitics average. President Donald Trump endorsed Donalds early in the campaign, while term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis notably did not endorse any candidate in the race to replace him — not even his own lieutenant governor, Collins.
“I congratulate Byron Donalds on his victory,” Collins wrote on X after thanking his campaign staff, “and vow to continue fighting like hell to ensure we remain the free state of Florida in November.”
In his victory speech, Donalds recalled arriving in Florida on a Greyhound bus at 17 years old with just a trunk full of clothes. “I worked at Cracker Barrel and moved furniture on the weekends just to make ends meet,” he told supporters. “This state gave me a chance.”
“It prepared me for the real economic challenges that Floridians face every single day,” he continued, pivoting to his policy agenda.
Donalds vowed to tackle government spending, promising to “DOGE all local governments and all state agencies” while declaring “there will be no sacred cows.” “Taxpayers deserve to know their hard-earned dollars are being spent with transparency and hard-earned integrity,” he said, adding that “Liberal David Jolly is the change that Florida cannot afford.”
Fishback stole most of the campaign headlines with inflammatory comments, including accusing Donalds of wanting to turn Florida into a “Section 8 ghetto” and threatening to send civilians armed with AR-15s to quell teen violence. He also attacked Donalds for his pro-Israel views — dubbing him “AIPAC Shakur” in a reference to the rapper Tupac Shakur and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — as well as a “token black” and a “slave to his donors.”
Donalds ignored virtually all of his younger opponent’s offensive remarks, offering by way of response: “If you want to be ignorant, you’re allowed to be.”
In Tampa, Fishback claimed victory for galvanizing a grassroots campaign in his concession speech. “The truth is while I concede this race, I do not concede this fight because the future of our country is on the line,” he told supporters. “Our opposition had over $100 million. We had 1% of that, and yet we secured ten times as many votes as the dollars we raised.”
The Donalds campaign and committees backing his bid combined to raise more than $100 million, a windfall that will now be deployed against Jolly in the general election. Donalds already purchased a $2 million ad buy to run Wednesday through Monday focusing on affordability and Amendment 3, the property tax initiative.
Jolly served in the U.S. House as a Republican from 2014 to 2017, losing his bid for a second full congressional term to Charlie Crist, another Republican-turned-Democrat. Jolly left the GOP in 2018 and initially registered as an independent. In 2022, he joined former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s Forward Party. By 2025, the regular pundit on left-leaning MS NOW had registered as a Democrat to make his run for governor.
“To my Democratic friends, thank you for welcoming me into the party,” Jolly told cheering supporters Tuesday night, promising to run on a platform of limited government that still “needs to do its part to fill the gaps” between rich and poor.
“As an old-school Republican, I talk about ending the culture wars not to celebrate some progressive platform,” he added, “but because I still believe in the old-school Republican, libertarian policy that government should simply stay out of your life.”
Jolly has selected former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham as his running mate. Graham, the daughter of the late Florida governor and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor herself in 2018.
In the viral moment that defined the GOP primary’s closing weeks, Fishback showed up at a Donalds appearance and called him “a slave” through a megaphone while his supporters mobbed the frontrunner. The incident capped months of escalating rhetoric from Fishback, who also withstood a court challenge by Collins attempting to throw him off the ballot. On Tuesday night, Fishback did not change his nativist rhetoric, at one point name dropping AIPAC during his concession speech. “This campaign from the beginning has not been about AIPAC. It’s been about impact,” he said.
If elected in November, Donalds will become Florida’s first black governor and its fifth consecutive Republican chief executive. The most recent Democrat to hold office as Florida governor was Buddy MacKay, who left Tallahassee in January 1999 after his defeat by Jeb Bush the previous November. Lawton Chiles became the most recent Democrat to be elected Florida governor when he won a second term in 1994.
The general election will be held November 3.