Florida entered Election Day with two streaks on a collision course: Republicans had won seven straight races for governor. No Black Republican had ever been elected governor anywhere in America. Only one streak would survive.
We now know the answer.
MS NOW projects U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds has won Florida’s governorship, defying political gravity and breaking a new barrier for a Black Republican candidate. Two other Black Republicans were running for governor Tuesday: Lisa Demuth in Minnesota and John James in Michigan.
Florida entered Election Day with two streaks on a collision course. Only one streak would survive.
Here at MS NOW in September, I wondered if Florida’s Republican advantage would be enough to carry Donalds and pointed out the national political environment hostile to his party and that he was trying to break through a barrier no Black Republican ever had.
Donalds ran as a conservative successor to Ron DeSantis, promising lower property taxes and insurance costs, expanded school choice, less red tape and tougher immigration and crime enforcement. He has also leaned into culture-war fights and portrayed Jolly as offering a blue-state model for Florida.
Jolly focused relentlessly on affordability, led by a state-backed catastrophe fund to lower property insurance costs. He also supported more public-school funding, tighter rules on vouchers, Medicaid expansion, abortion rights, gun reforms, climate resilience and a moratorium on hyperscale data centers. He ran against culture wars and ethics scandals while presenting himself as a former Republican offering a more inclusive alternative.
In August’s Republican primary, Donalds’ support was notably weaker in rural northern Florida, a region that tends to be whiter and less diverse. Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who is white and came in second, carried 17 counties where the Republican voter registration is 94% white. In two of them, Dixie County and Liberty County, Donalds finished third.
Florida Republicans began the year with a 1.5 million voter registration advantage. Republican Gov. DeSantis won the state by nearly 20 points four years ago. Donalds raised millions more than his opponent.
Before this year, Americans had elected only three Black governors, all of them Democrats: L. Douglas Wilder in Virginia, Deval Patrick in Massachusetts and Wes Moore in Maryland. During Reconstruction, P.B.S. Pinchback, a Black Republican, briefly served as Louisiana’s governor, but he wasn’t elected to the office.
Donalds said he didn’t want race to be a central part of his story. “I’ll let you guys write about that.”
In 1986, Bill Lucas, the executive of Wayne County, Michigan, tried to become the first Black Republican elected governor in the country. Twenty years later, it was Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania in 2006. Daniel Cameron ran in Kentucky in 2023, Mark Robinson ran in North Carolina in 2024 and Winsome Earle-Sears ran in Virginia in 2025. The GOP held up each of these Black candidates as proof that the party was new and more diverse. Each of them lost.
Donalds previously said he didn’t want race to be a central part of his story. After winning the Republican primary, he called Florida “a great meritocracy” and, in response to a question about the racial significance of his win, said, “I’ll let you guys write about that.”
The post Florida Gov.-elect Byron Donalds outran history Tuesday appeared first on MS NOW.
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