David Jolly got the Miami Herald.
Byron Donalds just got the mayors.
And 156 Florida mayors and officials just lined up behind Byron Donalds 11 days before the election.
From Pensacola to the Keys
156 Florida local elected officials endorsed Byron Donalds for governor on Thursday.
Not insiders. Not lobbyists.
Not party bosses cutting deals in a Tallahassee back room.
Mayors. County commissioners. School board members. State attorneys. Tax collectors. Property appraisers.
The officials Floridians dial when something breaks – the road, the budget, the neighborhood.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2113393959615520899?s=20
The list stretches from Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves in the Panhandle all the way down to Monroe County in the Keys.
Clearwater. Cape Coral. Coral Gables. Hialeah. Doral. The Space Coast. The First Coast. The Gulf Coast.
More than 30 current mayors and vice mayors signed on.
So did Miami-Dade Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez and Property Appraiser Tomás Regalado – constitutional officers who answer directly to voters, not party machines.
State attorneys from two judicial circuits.
Public defenders. School superintendents from Clay, Franklin, and Lee counties.
School board members from Brevard to Pinellas.
This is what a ground game looks like when it's actually working.
What This Means 11 Days Out
Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland put it plainly.
"I've had the opportunity to work alongside Congressman Donalds, and I know firsthand his commitment to fiscal responsibility, accountability, and creating opportunity for Florida families," Howland said. “His unwavering support for our veterans and his vision for growing Florida’s space economy are exactly what our state needs.”
That's a local official – someone who runs city council meetings and fields constituent calls and actually has to answer for what the government does – saying Byron Donalds is the real deal.
https://twitter.com/ScottPresler/status/2113315659371164039?s=20
Donalds has Trump's endorsement.
He has Rick Scott.
He has Elon Musk.
He has an $81 million war chest – the largest ever for a non-incumbent gubernatorial candidate in Florida history.
Now he has 156 elected officials knocking on doors and making calls in their own communities between now and November 3rd.
Jolly can't match that structure.
He got 60 Democratic leaders last year.
He got the AFL-CIO and the teachers union this summer – organizations that spend their members' dues fighting conservative school boards across the state.
Donalds got the school board members themselves.
The History No One Can Ignore
Florida hasn't elected a Democrat governor since 1994.
Cook Political Report rates this race Solid Republican.
The betting markets give Republicans an 83 to 85 percent chance of winning the governorship.
The most recent polling has Donalds up seven points over Jolly statewide.
But the story here isn't just a race.
It's what happens if Byron Donalds wins on November 3rd.
https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/2113605910392119792?s=20
He becomes the first black governor in Florida history – and something that has literally never happened in the United States: a Black Republican governor.
No one on the Left wants to talk about that.
They spent years insisting that Black conservatives don't exist or don't count.
They elevated Andrew Gillum in 2018 and watched him lose to DeSantis by less than half a percentage point – then watched Gillum's personal life collapse in disgrace.
Now a conservative black man raised in Crown Heights by a single mother – a man who voted with Trump, fought for the border, and built a national profile from a Southwest Florida congressional district – is 11 days away from making the history they claimed to want.
That's not just a Florida story.
That's an America First story.
Local officials across the entire state of Florida just told you who they trust to lead it.
Sources:
- Frank Kopylov, "156 Florida local officials back Byron Donalds for governor," Florida Voice News, October 22, 2026.
- "New Poll Shows Trump-Backed Donalds Continuing to Dominate Florida Governor's Race," ByronDonalds.com, 2026.
- "Poll: Byron Donalds Holds Strong Lead in GOP Gubernatorial Primary," The Capitolist, June 11, 2026.
- "Byron Donalds wins Florida GOP primary, moves closer to becoming state's first Black governor," The Grio, August 18, 2026.
- "Trump-Backed Rep. Byron Donalds announces run to replace DeSantis as Florida governor," WFTV, 2025.
