Is Donald Trump about to once again hand-select the next leader of Florida?
The president has boasted for years that it was his endorsement of Ron DeSantis when he was a longshot in his race against Adam Putnam that boosted his popularity and paved his path to the Governor’s Mansion in 2018.
Trump may do that again this year.
There has been no more significant event in Florida politics over the past year-and-a-half than Trump’s endorsement of Byron Donalds in February 2025 for governor, days before the Naples Republican U.S. representative had declared his candidacy to succeed DeSantis. Donalds has been the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate since.
Other Republicans — Paul Renner, Jay Collins, and James Fishback — have been fighting for second place.
That was never more evident than in recent court proceedings in which Collins attempted to get Fishback thrown off the ballot, alleging the 31-year-old investment CEO didn’t meet the state’s seven-year residency requirement. While the story generated headlines, the net result — Fishback remains eligible — won’t likely change the trajectory of the primary race when balloting is finished on Aug. 8.
READ MORE: How and where to vote in South Florida for the 2026 Primary and General Election
On the Democratic side, any thoughts of a competitive race dissolved when Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings dropped out two months ago because of poor health, effectively giving the nomination to former Republican U.S. Rep. David Jolly. There remain five other Democrats in the race, however.
They include North Miami Democratic state Rep. Dotie Joseph as well as Dayna Marie Foster, Evelyn Castillo-Bach, Thomas Fernandez, Thomas Fernandez, and Stephann Norman. The Phoenix reported on their candidacies in June.
Byron Donalds
Donalds maintains a more than 30-point lead, based on an average of the past five polls, according to FiftyPlusOne.
Donalds is at 43%, Fishback at 12.1%, and Collins at 11.5%, according to that compendium of surveys.
An individual poll taken last month bythe Tyson Group, considered one of the state’s best polling firms, showed Donalds at 48%, nearly 40 points ahead of Collins (at 9%), Fishback (8%), and former House Speaker Paul Renner (4%). A quarter of the electorate was undecided.
Fishback, Collins, and Renner have attacked Donalds on several fronts during the primary, and yet none of that has appeared to wound the front-runner (or boosted their own campaigns) in any discernible way.
Donalds, the 47-year-old Brooklyn native who moved to Florida three decades ago, has raised more $100 million. That includes a recent $10 million contribution from billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who moved from Chicago to Miami several years ago and was a major financial contributor to Ron DeSantis’ bid for president.
Donalds has seen virtually everything go his way since entering the race early last year. DeSantis’ announcement last year that he would not backhim appeared to open a pathway for a DeSantis-backed candidate. In fact, First Lady Casey DeSantis polled relatively well compared to Donalds in 2025 surveys. But she never entered the contest, and the governor has declined to endorse any Republican.
Regarding property tax reductions, Donalds has said that if voters reject Amendment 3 in November, he intends to revive the issue next year via the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission (a sentiment shared by the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Florida TaxWatch).
On housing policy, Donalds says he intends to reduce permitting times to lower the price of construction to make housing more affordable.
On the contentious issue of data centers, no candidate in Florida running for office this election cycle has received more financial backingfrom that industry than the GOP gubernatorial front-runner. For months on the campaign trail, Donalds has argued the state needed to lead on the issue.
“Are we going to embrace the next wave of innovation, or are we going to put our heads in the sand?” he saidduring a campaign appearance in March. But now, with more than 20 local governments in Florida having voted to reject construction of major data centers, Donalds has filed legislation to ensure developers, and not taxpayers, absorb those costs.
Donalds has also vowed to “enact the Trump agenda,” a line that helps him in the contested GOP primary but could prove a problem in the general election, with the president under water in public approval rankings in the Sunshine State.
James Fishback
One demographic where Donalds might be shaky is young white men. A certain part of that cohort seems enamored of investment firm CEO James Fishback.
During a meeting of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans last week at which Donalds spoke, Spectrum Newsreported that “it wasn’t entirely a friendly crowd.” At the same club in December, several audience members told the Phoenix theysupported Fishback and wished Trump hadn’t endorsed Donalds.
To say the 31-year-old Fishback’s run for governor has been controversial would be an understatement. Along with some legal problems that have surfaced since he declared his candidacy, he has faced accusations of making racist and antisemitic comments.
READ MORE: Governor's race: James Fishback’s pro-law enforcement running mate under criminal investigation
Officials with the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) cited those accusations, along with his alleged “baseless attacks about Florida GOP officials,” as the reason they rescinded their invitation for him to attend their summer convention in South Florida last month. Around the same time, a political committee associated with Texas Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz spent hundreds of thousands of dollars against him in an ad that aired throughout Florida last month.
“Why would you spend $10 million in the middle of the World Cup running ads against us? Did they run ads against Jay Collins? Did they run ads against Paul Renner? No, they have only run ads against us,” Fishback told the Phoenix last week during a press conference at Tampa’s Union Station. “We are the only campaign who has directly been targeted in attack ads other than Byron Donalds. That should tell you everything that you need to know about the establishment fearing us.”
Jay Collins
When Ron DeSantis chose then-Hillsborough County state Sen. Jay Collins as lieutenant governor a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that with Casey DeSantis no longer considering a run, the retired Special Forces, combat-wounded veteran surely would become the governor’s heir apparent.
That that never happened has hurt his candidacy, as he’s been forced to address the non-endorsement ever since he jumped in the race.
Collins has been aggressive in hammering Donalds on a number of fronts, including holding a press conferencein St. Petersburg in April to issue a 13-page document alleging “liabilities,” including references to Donald’s acknowledged arrest record.
Collins supporters produced an AI-created ad depicting a Byron Donalds administration dominated by data centers and marijuana dispensaries.
None of those moves has appeared to move the needle for Collins.
“People are not enamored by Byron. They are not. But those who are voting for him are largely voting for him because of the president’s endorsement, not because of Byron,” Collins lamented during a Tampa press conference last week.
Paul Renner
While all four of the top Republicans insist they admire DeSantis and want to maintain the conservative momentum the governor has imprinted on the state, one could argue no one is more in synch with DeSantis than Renner.
Renner was speaker of the Florida House during the 2023 session when he (and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo) steered major proposals on undocumented immigration, union busting, restrictions on groups registering new voters , and a six-week abortion ban to passage. The session was tailor-made for the governor to launch a presidential bid.
Renner (and Passidomo) even traveled to freezing Iowa that January to campaign for DeSantis ahead of the caucus. Yet when Renner entered the gubernatorial primary in September, DeSantis’ only comment was, “It was an ill-advised decision.”
On the campaign trail, Renner has laid out policies, including a detailed a plan to reduce homestead property taxes that included details about how to make up the expected loss of funding for local governments — something critics say Ron DeSantis and the GOP-dominated Legislature have failed to do in putting Amendment 3 on the ballot.
There are several other Republicans running in the gubernatorial primary. You can find them on the Florida Division of Elections website.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
