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Byron Donalds was supposed to be the safe bet. The Naples congressman has President Trump’s endorsement, a fundraising lead his primary rivals cannot touch, and home-field advantage in a state that has drifted hard to the right. So why is a new poll showing him trailing a Democrat in the race for governor?
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The latest Change Research survey, conducted July 9 to 11, found Democrat David Jolly leading Donalds 46 percent to 40 percent among likely voters. The poll of 1,348 registered voters, 1,004 of them likely voters, carried a margin of error of 2.8 percent.
What the poll found
Jolly, a former Republican congressman who switched parties and entered the race as a Democrat, holds his edge despite being largely unknown to the electorate. Only 45 percent of likely voters said they had heard or read anything about him. That leaves plenty of room for the numbers to move once the general election campaign heats up.
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The survey also pointed to trouble spots for Donalds. Just 31 percent of voters said they approve of the job he is doing in Congress, and support among some Republicans looked soft. When respondents were read short descriptions of both candidates, Jolly’s lead widened to 48 percent to 39 percent, a sign that the more voters learn about the matchup, the better the Democrat tends to poll.
The caveats worth noting
Before anyone declares Florida a battleground, the fine print matters. Change Research is a Democratic-aligned firm, and this poll was commissioned by Freedom Project USA. Its wider Jolly leads show up on an informed ballot, after respondents hear favorable framing of each candidate, which is not the same as a standard unprompted horse-race question.
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Other pollsters see the race differently. An Emerson College survey earlier this year had Donalds ahead 44 to 39, and a Cherry Communications poll for the Florida Chamber of Commerce had him up 8 points. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report still rates the contest “Solid Republican.”
Donalds fires back
Donalds’ campaign dismissed the survey outright. Pointing to a post from communications director Gates McGavick, the campaign called it “a lazy psy op to swindle national Dems into lighting money on fire” in Florida, arguing the same pollster missed the mark by double digits in past Florida cycles.
Why it could matter for Republicans
President Trump carried Florida by 13 points in 2024, and no Democrat has won the governor’s mansion since the 1990s. Republicans hold every statewide office and have expanded their voter-registration advantage. On paper, this should not be close.
But the poll hints at why Republicans should not take the seat for granted. A slice of the GOP base is cool on Donalds, no-party-affiliation voters are leaning toward Jolly, and cost-of-living frustration is running high across the state. If Donalds emerges from the primary bruised and his opponents cannot raise the money to counter him, Republicans could find themselves spending resources to defend ground they assumed was locked down.
What’s next
Donalds remains the clear frontrunner for the GOP nomination heading into the Aug. 18 primary. President Trump has endorsed him, while term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis has stayed publicly neutral. Florida’s voter registration deadline is July 20.
The general election is still months away, and a single Democratic-aligned poll does not rewrite Florida’s political map. But it does raise a question Republicans did not expect to be asking this cycle: is their strongest candidate also their biggest liability?
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