Byron Donalds wins Florida governor’s race

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) is projected to defeat Democrat David Jolly in the Florida gubernatorial race , according to Decision Desk HQ.

Donalds, who has represented the Sunshine State’s 19th Congressional District since 2021, will succeed outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in January. DeSantis is term-limited and could not run for reelection.

Donalds is leading Jolly by 0.8 percentage points with 93.4 percent of the vote counted as of 8:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday, according to DDHQ.

The three-term representative won comfortably in the August Republican primary , defeating Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins (R) by 20-plus points.

His win extends the GOP’s grip on the Florida governor’s mansion in Tallahassee by defeating Jolly, a former Republican who represented Florida’s 13th Congressional District for three years in the 2010s.

A Democrat has not won a governor’s race in Florida — long one of the prized swing states in presidential contests — since then-Gov. Lawton Chiles (D) defeated future Gov. Jeb Bush (R) in 1994.

When he is sworn in on Jan. 8, Donalds will become the first Black governor in Florida’s history and just the second Black governor of a state south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Donalds will also join Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) as the only Black governors in the country.

But Donalds, who is of Jamaican and Panamanian descent, downplayed the historical stakes of his candidacy on the campaign trail, saying in March he has not “focused” on his race while in politics.

“It’s not so much about my race,” he told Jim DeFede of CBS News Miami . “I think [it] is more about the policies I support, the principles I stand for, commonsense conservative policies that have made Florida the envy of the other 49 states in the union.”

Before he even launched his campaign, Donalds had President Trump’s backing . Days before the congressman entered the race, the president said he “would be a truly Great and Powerful” governor of the country’s third-largest state by population.

But while Donalds praised DeSantis on the trail, the outgoing governor did not officially endorse his fellow Republican until September — after he won the nomination.

Donalds’s lieutenant governor will be Florida state Sen. Bryan Ávila (R). He is the third lieutenant governor of Cuban descent in the state’s history, following Republicans Carlos Lopez-Cantera and Jeanette Nuñez.