Florida Republican Byron Donalds has joined the list of House members running for governor.
“I’m here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida,” Donalds said Tuesday evening on Fox News.
The move was not a surprise, with President Donald Trump posting on social media last week that he would endorse the third-term congressman from Naples if he entered the race.
“As Governor, Byron would have a BIG Voice, and would work closely with me to advance our America First Agenda. He will fight tirelessly to Secure our Border, Stop Migrant Crime, Strengthen our Military, Protect our Vets, Restore our Economic Power, Advance American Energy DOMINANCE, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” the president said on his Truth Social platform.
Donalds is the first major Republican to enter the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida first lady Casey DeSantis is reportedly considering a gubernatorial run, a prospect her husband talked up on Monday, The New York Times reported.
“You’re talking about somebody like her. I won by the biggest margin that any Republican’s won a governor’s race here in Florida. She would do better than me,” Ron DeSantis told reporters in Tampa.
Asked if he would join Trump in endorsing Donalds, DeSantis opted to criticize lawmakers in Washington, including the congressman, for not being focused on enacting the president’s agenda.
“We’ve achieved victories in Florida. We need to start achieving those victories up there,” he said. “You got a guy like Byron. He just hasn’t been a part of any of the victories that we’ve had here over the left over these last years. He’s just not been a part of it. He’s been in other states campaigning doing that, and that’s fine, but OK, well, then deliver results up there.”
In his announcement Tuesday, Donalds praised the “tremendous job” DeSantis has done as Florida governor, adding that “now the job is to keep the best state in the country as the best state in the country.”
Donalds timed his Fox News announcement for just after the tight House Republican majority adopted, 217-215, a fiscal 2025 budget resolution that would provide reconciliation instructions to get to work on much of the Trump legislative agenda, including on tax cuts and spending.
Donalds, who was among the many House Republicans floated as a potential speaker last Congress, was first elected to his southwest Florida district in 2020 and is currently the only Black Republican in the Sunshine State’s congressional delegation.
Seen as a rising star within the House GOP conference, Donalds serves on both the Financial Services and Oversight and Government Reform committees. He is originally from the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York. He moved to Florida for college, attending Florida A&M before graduating from Florida State in 2002.
“I got to Florida when I was 17 years old, off of a Greyhound bus with just a trunk full of clothes. And over the rest of my time in Florida, I’ve built a family, I’ve built a career,” Donalds said Tuesday. “I was able to serve four years in the state Legislature, four years in Congress, and I think now is the time to now take the mantle and lead our state into the future.”
Republicans have long dominated governor’s races in Florida, a onetime swing state that has turned decidedly red in recent cycles. No Democrat has won a gubernatorial election in the state since 1994, when Gov. Lawton Chiles won a second term.
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