WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The race to be Florida's next governor is a competitive one — a statistical tie, according to a poll released last week by the University of North Florida.
I caught up with Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly as they each campaigned across the state, pitching different visions of Florida's future to voters.
Donalds, a Republican congressman, told me in a video call from his campaign bus on the road that he wants to build on the policies he likes from Gov. Ron DeSantis' outgoing administration.
"We live in a great state, and what has separated us from the other states is we continue to choose common sense conservative policy," Donalds said.
That includes immigration enforcement.
"We're going to continue that mission here in the great state of Florida because we are going to continue to follow the law. I think that's the appropriate use of state authority and state powers," Donalds said.
It also includes Florida's Department of Government Efficiency, which DeSantis formed through an executive order in 2025 and has since conducted audits of multiple counties across Florida.
"We are going to DOGE all governments, both local and state agencies in the state of Florida, because it's not our tax money. It belongs to the people of Florida. We need to make sure that government lives within its means, the way families have to live within their means," Donalds said.
Donalds told me that effort will be important if Amendment 3 passes, raising homestead tax exemptions and reducing local revenue.
I asked him whether, as governor, he would be prepared if some of the municipalities that need help come to Tallahassee asking for it.
"Yes, we will, and we've already made a public commitment to the fiscally constrained counties in the state of Florida," Donalds said. "Those that we know that their budgets are going to change in a major way, that we're prepared to provide a funding formula for those fiscally constrained counties so that they can be able to make ends meet."
Jolly, a Democrat who served as a Republican in Congress during the 2010s, visited WPTV as his campaign traveled through Palm Beach County. He has said he personally opposes Amendment 3, but will support the will of the voters if it passes.
"I think we all want the math behind Amendment 3 to work, but it just doesn't," Jolly said.
Florida hasn't elected a Democrat as governor since the 1990s. I asked Jolly why he thinks that is and why he believes his campaign could overcome that.
"Look, we're a state that trended Republican, particularly in the last eight years, and we know by voter registration it's still a predominantly Republican state," Jolly said. "I think we're in a moment most akin to a 1974 post-Watergate moment, where voters are saying, 'Burn the ships. Let's go in a new direction.'"
Jolly said that direction should be simple.
"Housing, healthcare, education, and no data centers. That's it," Jolly said. "The answers are not in ideology. The answers are in solutions."
He also said he wants to reach across the aisle to achieve those goals.
"If we expand health care access, we reduce costs. So you can be a conservative that wants to save money or a progressive that wants more health care. When we invest in public education, we create a resilient economy that should be attractive to Republicans. The economic argument behind that, I think, on housing, when more people have stable housing, the economy is better. I think we can work with Republicans," Jolly said.
One issue where the two candidates agree is on school choice. Both told me they support keeping universal vouchers in place.
Jolly also emphasized his desire to increase transparency requirements in Florida's charter schools and increase teacher pay in public schools.
"Let's engage in a little bit of consumer protection here on behalf of kids and families, and say that if you're going to take a voucher as a school, you should have to provide the same services, standards and offerings and be measured by the same measuring stick that our public schools are," Jolly said.
Asked whether financial records of charter schools should be public records, as they are for public schools, Donalds replied, "I think if you're talking about what parents are looking for, what they want to basically see, are the children being educated? What are the mathematical attainment scores of that school? What are the reading attainment scores of that school? And if you're talking about high school, what's the ACT scores and what's the SAT scores? I think that's the accountability and the transparency that parents are looking for in the state of Florida, because at the end of the day, they're looking to make sure that the output is where it needs to be."
Donalds' wife, Erika Donalds, founded a charter school company and currently runs a nonprofit promoting school choice.
"My wife is actually not in the charter school business anymore. She was. She's actually been out of that business for a couple of years," Donalds told me. "But I just want to be clear: she will not be contracting with the state of Florida in any way, shape, or form."
On data center policy, the candidates differ. Jolly said he supports a moratorium on data center construction, while Donalds believes those decisions should be left up to local governments.
"If a local government says no data centers, then no data centers. If they do, then where the state steps in is we make sure that utility bills, utility costs are not passed on to consumers, and we also make sure that we are going to protect water resources in our state," Donalds said.
For the first time in decades, Florida voters did not get to see a gubernatorial debate for this election.
Asked what he would say to Jolly had the two candidates faced one another on the debate stage, Donalds said, "I would like him to explain why and how the people of Florida are going to be able to pay for his insurance plan, because by independent analysis, his insurance plan will drive up premiums on the people of our state, and everybody will be hit with a $1,000 hurricane tax when the next time the big storm comes through," referring to the funding the sovereign wealth fund Jolly says he would like to create to cover windstorm damage for Florida homeowners. (Jolly has denied that the fund would impose a new tax.)
"I'm not sure debates improve our politics at this point. I think they just platform the division and the vitriol and the ugliness," Jolly told me. "My wife says in a world of Donald Trump, I'm trying to be Ted Lasso. We have two young kids, and I want them to look back and know that Dad acted in a way that he spoke of, which was not to further devolve our politics into vitriol and ugliness and division. Debates are about who can score the greatest insult, and I just I don't think that helps."
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