On paper, Florida looks like the perfect place for Rep. Byron Donalds to make history as the country’s first elected Black Republican governor.
Republicans have won every Florida governor’s race this century. President Donald Trump carried the state three times. Gov. Ron DeSantis won re-election by nearly 20 points. Republicans now hold a voter registration advantage of roughly 1.5 million.
Donalds, meanwhile, has nearly everything he’d seem to need: a national profile, formidable fundraising operation and close ties to the sitting president.
I’m still not convinced he’ll win.
Republicans have proved willing to nominate Black candidates for governor. But they haven’t yet found a candidate who can overcome the racial resistance some voters bring to the ballot box and assemble the general election coalition required to win.
Republicans have proved that they are willing to nominate Black candidates for governor. But they haven’t yet found a Black gubernatorial candidate who can defy political gravity, overcome the racial resistance some voters bring to the ballot box and assemble the general election coalition required to win.
Despite all the advantages listed for Donalds mentioned above, last week, Decision Desk HQ moved the governor’s race to a toss-up, the third forecaster in recent days to shift it toward Democrat David Jolly. A recent St. Pete Polls survey showed a statistical tie.
We’ve seen this movie before, or at least the start of it: Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania in 2006; Daniel Cameron in Kentucky in 2023; Mark Robinson in North Carolina in 2024; and Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia in 2025. Each of those Black candidates was held up by the GOP as proof that the party is new and more diverse. Each of them lost.
The reasons varied. Cameron ran against a popular incumbent governor, Andy Beshear. Robinson was so extreme and scandal-prone he lost in a year Trump carried North Carolina. Others ran into hostile political environments. That’s why Blackwell’s loss may be the most instructive today.
In 2006, Republicans faced a brutal midterm in the second term of a Republican presidency. Blackwell had won statewide three times, and former President George W. Bush had carried Ohio two years earlier. None of it protected him from the national backlash. He lost by 24 points.
Different states, different years, different political climates. And yet the same result each time for the Black Republican vying to be governor.
The strongest case against my skepticism of Donalds’ chances is Florida’s electorate. Last month, more than 1.69 million Floridians voted in the Republican primary for governor, compared with about 1.24 million on the Democratic side. Republicans have a clear registration advantage, and they turned out.
But November’s electorate will be much larger. More than 3.3 million active Florida voters are registered with no party affiliation and couldn’t participate in either partisan primary. That’s more than twice the GOP’s registration advantage. Those voters broke for DeSantis in 2022, a midterm election under a Democratic president. This year, the backlash runs the other way.
Different states, different years, different political climates. And yet the same result each time for the Black Republican vying to be governor.
Kentucky also offers a lesson. Trump carried it by 26 points in 2020. Three years later, Cameron was a sitting attorney general endorsed by Trump and a rising GOP star. Yet enough Republican voters crossed party lines to re-elect the Democrat, Beshear.
At this point, Donalds’ greatest strength, his closeness to Trump, may be his greatest weakness. He was one of Trump’s most effective surrogates and a staunch defender of Trump during his criminal prosecutions. Donalds was even talked about as a potential running mate. Trump endorsed Donalds even before Donalds had declared his candidacy.
That support helped Donalds win an 11-candidate Republican primary by nearly 23 points. But Donalds himself conceded that Trump’s endorsement would not be enough in November.
He is right to worry. Trump’s approval rating hovers around 38%, according to the latest New York Times/Sienna polling, amid growing dissatisfaction with the Iran war and the resulting higher gas prices.
Donalds has stood by Trump through it all. If voters are angry now, he can’t credibly run from the president, no matter how many mentions and photos of Trump he scrubs from his own campaign website.
Donalds’ Democratic opponent, Jolly, offers an unusually clean contrast. The former Republican congressman left the party and is now running with Gwen Graham, daughter of the late Bob Graham, a popular Democrat who served as governor and a U.S. senator.
If Donalds loses, high prices might be the primary cause. Floridians’ consumer sentiment fell for four straight months this spring, reaching a two-year low in June. Homeowners insurance is part of the squeeze: Premiums rose 75% between 2021 and 2025, roughly twice the national rate.
And Republicans own the record. They’ve controlled the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the legislature for 27 years.
The Hispanic vote will also be a key factor in November’s election. Trump won 58% of Florida Latinos in 2024. But a recent St. Pete Polls survey had Jolly leading Donalds among Hispanic voters, 48% to 39%. That’s a constituency central to Florida’s Republican transformation and no doubt a key factor in Donalds’ choice of Bryan Ávila, a Cuban lawmaker from South Florida, has his running mate.
Then there is the rest of the Democratic ticket, including state Rep. Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist running for U.S. Senate. Ideologically, she and the former Republican Jolly are miles apart. Electorally, each could be an asset to the other at the ballot box. Jolly has an argument for independents and disaffected Republicans; Nixon has one for progressives who might otherwise lack enthusiasm for a former Republican.
America has elected three Black governors: Democrats L. Douglas Wilder in Virginia, Deval Patrick in Massachusetts and Wes Moore in Maryland. No Black Republican has ever been elected governor.
How much racism contributed to the defeats of every Black GOP nominee for governor is impossible to measure precisely. But it would be foolish to pretend racial resistance at the ballot box no longer exists.
In last month’s primary, Donalds’ support was notably weaker in rural northern Florida, which tends to be whiter and less diverse. Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who is white, carried 17 counties where the Republican voter registration is 94% white. In two of them, Dixie County and Liberty County, Donalds finished third.
This data does not prove voters rejected Donalds because he’s Black. Collins worked the counties hard, and primaries turn on many factors. But it tells us where to look in November.
There’s reason to believe Republicans who wouldn’t support a well-qualified Black Republican presidential candidate would reject a well-qualified Black Republican gubernatorial candidate.
In a 2024 Gallup poll, only 88% of Republicans (compared to 92% of independents and 96% of Democrats) said they would vote for a well-qualified Black presidential candidate nominated by the GOP. The question was about the White House, not the Florida’s governor’s mansion. Still, there’s reason to believe Republicans who wouldn’t support a well-qualified Black Republican presidential candidate would reject a well-qualified Black Republican gubernatorial candidate.
Republicans have made gains with Black voters: Pew’s analysis of 2024 voting patterns found that Trump won 15% of Black voters, including 21% of Black men. But Trump’s high disapproval across demographic groups, including those where the party made gains two years ago, cannot be relied upon in this tough political environment.
Blackwell knows that firsthand. Twenty years ago, he had the résumé and three statewide wins under his belt. He ran in the sixth year of an unpopular Republican presidency and lost by 24 points.
Florida should be the place for a Black Republican to break the gubernatorial barrier, given the Republican voter registration, Daniels’ fundraising numbers and the state’s recent electoral history.
And yet the race is a toss-up.
The political environment explains much of that. Race may explain some of the rest. Together, they may be enough to cost him the race.
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