Byron Donalds wins and will be Florida's first Black governor

By Merrilee Gasser
The Center Square

Republican U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds defeated Democrat David Jolly on Tuesday to become the first Black candidate elected governor of Florida.

Donalds secured 50.1% of the vote to Jolly's 48.7%. 

Donalds, whose term in the U.S. House ends on January 3, was backed by President Trump. Gov. Ron DeSantis withheld his endorsement until after Donalds won the Republican primary.

Donalds was born in Brooklyn, New York and calls Naples, Florida home. He graduated from Florida State University in 2002.

Jolly, while a newcomer to the Democratic party, is not a newcomer to the political arena. He served in the U.S. House as a Republican from 2014 to 2017. He left the Republican party in 2018 to register as an independent and then eventually as a Democrat last year. He is a fifth-generation Floridian and lives in Pinellas County.

Days ahead of election day, DeSantis warned Republicans needed to step it up and vote.

On Monday Jolly put out a last-minute plea for undecided Republican voters to support him.

Donalds and Jolly never met for a debate. Donalds accepted three invitations and Jolly accepted two, but none were for the same event. Jolly ruled out a debate in September, saying it would “only further stoke division, animosity, and bad will.”

Three days later, both men showed up for an economic forum hosted by South Florida public radio station WLRN. Each got 30 minutes with the same moderator. Afterward, Donalds told reporters the two candidates had been “separated by drywall.”