Democrats Come Too Close For Comfort In Florida As GOP Hangs On For Dear Life

Republican candidates eked out narrow wins in Florida’s gubernatorial and Senate races Tuesday, raising the question of whether Florida has reverted to being a swing state.

Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, the state’s GOP gubernatorial nominee, won a closer-than-expected race to succeed term-limited Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He bested Democratic nominee David Jolly, a former GOP congressman, 50.0% to 48.7% with more than 95% of ballots counted, according to The Associated Press (AP). The close call comes just two years after President Donald Trump carried the Sunshine State by 13 percentage points and four years after DeSantis won reelection in a nearly 20-point landslide.

Donalds’s victory marks the eighth consecutive time the Republican nominee won a Florida gubernatorial election. He will also be the first black Republican governor in American history.

The congressman, who has represented a deep-red seat based in Fort Myers and Naples since 2020, won a contested August primary with Trump’s backing, receiving 47.8% of the vote, according to AP. Republican Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, with 25.2% of the vote, came in a distant second place while 31-year-old investor James Fishback — who had significant support among young voters — came in third with 10.5% of the vote.

Donalds told Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Amber Duke in September that Fishback drew votes from many Gen Z Floridians who saw hope for their future symbolized in him.

“I think if anything resonated, it is that young people want to know that there’s a plan for their success,” the congressman told Duke. “Whether you’re going to college or not going to college, we want to make sure every child in our state, every young adult in our state, has a chance to build, you know, the Florida dream for themselves.”

Donalds also told Duke he supports certain guardrails on data centers, in contrast to Jolly, who promised he would immediately place a moratorium on data center construction in the Sunshine State, likely for a full year.

“When it comes to energy and electricity bills, we are very clear in our state that a data center is not going to raise the utility costs of Floridians,” he said, adding that the centers should also recycle the water they use and not be in close proximity to residential areas. “My position is, if you’re not going to protect our resources and you’re not going to protect people’s utility bills, then no data centers.”

Regarding the increased deployment of Flock Safety cameras in local communities, the congressman said the “Fourth Amendment is not up for debate on this.”