Can a Democrat win the Florida governor's race for the first time since 1994?

Florida Republicans nominated Byron Donalds yesterday with about 48% of the vote, ahead of Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins with more than 25%, James Fishback with a little over 10%, and former House Speaker Paul Renner with 8.5%.

Jolly was a Republican congressman for Florida's 13th district from 2014 to 2017. He left the party in 2018, spent years registered as an independent, and became a Democrat in 2025. His running mate is Gwen Graham, who lost the 2018 Democratic primary for the same job.

The contract settles on the party of the winner on November 3. Florida holds no runoff in a general election, so a plurality takes it, and six independents and a Libertarian are also on the ballot.

Here's how we plan to capture 22% over 76 days, or 160% annualized, by betting on the 'Republican' contract at 82 cents. On 31 July, there were 5,607,836 registered Republicans in Florida and 4,066,503 Democrats, a gap of 1.54 million. Ron DeSantis won in 2022 by 19.4 points, while Trump carried the state in 2024 by 13.1 points. No Democrat has been elected governor of Florida since Lawton Chiles beat Jeb Bush by 63,940 votes in 1994. Not to mention, Byron Donalds has raised more than $90m against Jolly's mere $6.3m.

Of course, one would say Trump's approval was 33% in the Reuters/Ipsos poll taken 14 to 17 August, a second-term low, and Decision Desk's generic ballot average had Democrats up six in August against four in July.

However, three independent polls of this race exist, and all of them point to Byron Donalds. The University of North Florida had Donalds 46 to 41 in mid-July. Targoz had 45 to 38 in late July. Stetson had 47 to 40 in the spring. It’s quite hard to go against the presented facts when they all indicate Byron Donalds will win.