Ken Griffin packed up Citadel and left Chicago for Miami in 2022 because he was done watching Democrats destroy everything they touch.
Now the man who funded Ron DeSantis' 20-point landslide just wrote a $10 million check for Byron Donalds.
What he did with that check tells you everything you need to know about who wins Florida's governor's race in November.
The Bet That Changes Everything
Ken Griffin does not write checks out of sentiment.
The Citadel billionaire dropped $10 million into the Friends of Byron Donalds PAC in a single week – the largest single donation in this race's history and the vast majority of Donalds' $11 million haul for the week ending July 17.
This is the same man who poured $5.1 million into DeSantis' reelection and personally bankrolled the defeat of Florida's adult-use marijuana amendment.
Griffin picks winners.
He backed DeSantis when everyone else was hedging.
https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/2079272629341483244?s=20
He moved his entire financial empire to Florida before it was fashionable to say the quiet part out loud about what Democrat governance does to a city.
And now he is all in on Byron Donalds – the Trump-endorsed Naples Congressman who has raised more than $103 million total, with nearly $70 million still sitting in the bank.
The Primary Donalds' Opponents Already Lost
The Republican primary is over in everything but name.
Lt. Gov. Jay Collins – the DeSantis-appointed former Green Beret – raised $75,000 last week and has roughly $900,000 to spend heading into the August 18 primary.
Former House Speaker Paul Renner raised $40,000 and holds about $1.5 million.
One of the other Republican candidates, James Fishback, raised just over $113,000 – but where that money came from is the question the mainstream media is already burying.
More than $106,000 of Fishback's haul came from George O'Neill Jr. – a great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller Jr. identified in federal court documents as a contact of Maria Butina, convicted in 2018 of acting as a secret Russian foreign agent.
Court records show Butina told O'Neill that all we need is yes from Putin's side while pushing for friendship dinners between American and Russian officials.
O'Neill was not accused of wrongdoing – but his emergence as the primary financial engine of a Republican gubernatorial candidate is the kind of thing Florida voters deserve to know before August 18.
What a 20-to-1 Money Advantage Actually Means
Here is what the political class keeps getting wrong about this race.
Democrats are celebrating polls showing David Jolly within five points of Donalds and calling it competitive.
It is not a competitive fundraising race.
Jolly raised roughly $1.45 million the same week Griffin wrote a single $10 million check.
https://twitter.com/exec_sum/status/2080728960627810680?s=20
Donalds has $70 million on hand.
Jolly has $3.5 million.
That is not a competitive race – that is a siege.
Jolly is a former Republican congressman who quit the GOP, registered as a Democrat in April 2025, and is now running as a "moderate" in a state Trump carried by 13 points in 2024.
No Democrat has won the Florida governorship since 1998.
DeSantis won reelection by nearly 20 points in 2022 – and Griffin was one of the biggest funders in that operation.
Why Florida's Biggest Donors Didn't Wait for DeSantis to Ask
The pundit class spent months asking whether DeSantis would formally bless Donalds before the biggest donors moved.
They got the question backwards.
https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/2081409110491173012?s=20
The donors who built Florida's dominant Republican machine don't wait for signals – they recognize a winning candidate and write the check.
DeSantis raised $217 million for his 2022 campaign – the most raised by any gubernatorial candidate in American history.
Donalds is already at $103 million with the primary still weeks away.
David Jolly can hold all the rallies he wants and celebrate every poll that shows him within five points.
The man who has $66 million more in the bank, the endorsement of the sitting president, and the financial backing of the donor who funded Florida's last landslide is not lying awake worrying about David Jolly.
He's preparing to govern.
Sources:
- A.G. Gancarski, "With Ken Griffin's help, Byron Donalds exceeds $103M raised for Governor's race," Florida Politics, July 25, 2026.
- Matt Dixon, "Ken Griffin donated $10 million to a political action committee supporting Byron Donalds," NBC News, July 2026.
- A.G. Gancarski, "New survey finds Byron Donalds ahead of David Jolly as Florida's Governor race tightens," Florida Politics, July 20, 2026.
- "Byron Donalds' Chances of Being Defeated by Democrats in Florida," Newsweek, July 2026.
- "Following record fundraising cycle, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis woos donors and lobbyists at inauguration events," OpenSecrets, January 2023.
