Although he’s already been endorsed by Donald Trump for governor, Southwest Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds is just now beginning to introduce himself to Floridians who don’t know much more about him other than his ubiquitous appearances on cable news over the past few years.
Speaking on the back of a small flatbed truck outside of Conservative Grounds, the MAGA-flavored coffee shop in Pinellas County on Saturday afternoon, Donalds was intent on responding to a criticism voiced by Ron DeSantis earlier this year that he “hasn’t been part of any of the victories” that Republicans have enjoyed in Florida in recent years.
“A lot’s been made about what I’ve been doing the last couple of years,” Donalds acknowledged about halfway through his 22-minute speech. He said the choice before him a year ago was whether he should stay in Florida and work for GOP candidates or “do I go on the road with Donald Trump and campaign to make sure that we save the United States of America?”
He said that, after conferring with his wife Erika and his team, he went all in for Trump.
“I told the president and I told his campaign, I said, ‘Listen: You can have the entire calendar. Just take it. It’s yours,” he said.
“Because Florida is wonderful. We have leadership that has protected this state. Gov DeSantis is to be commended for that. He’s done a tremendous job. But the fight this last November was not in Florida. The fight was across America. And so it didn’t matter where the liberals were, that’s where I was. If they were in Detroit, I was there. If they were in Philadelphia, I was there.”
Donalds, 46, is a Brooklyn native who moved to Florida to attend Florida State University, where he graduated in 2002 before beginning a career in banking, finance, and insurance, according to the biography listed on his congressional website. He got involved in politics in 2010, the year of the Tea Party, which led to his first run for Congress in 2012 (when he lost in a Republican primary in Congressional District 19 to Trey Radel).
He was elected to the state House representing all of Hendry and a part of Collier County in 2016 and was re-elected in 2018. In 2020, he opted to run for Congress in Florida’s 19th District in Southwest Florida after GOP incumbent Francis Rooney announced he was resigning. He narrowly defeated fellow Republican Dane Eagle in a nine-person GOP primary in 2020, and has been re-elected to that seat twice since.
In speaking about his plans if elected governor in 2026, Donalds touched on a variety of subjects without delving too deeply.
The property insurance situation? “We’re going to fix it once and for all.”
Transportation? “We’re going to continue the work from Gov. DeSantis. We’re going to expand these roads. We’re going to make it easier for people to move through, not just here in Clearwater, not just here in Pinellas, but all through Florida. We’re going to make it clear for everybody.”
The economy? “We’re going to make sure that our economy is the number one economy in the entire [nation],” he said. “We’re going to have more businesses coming here employing more people.”
Donalds is the only major declared Republican candidate in the race, although how long that remains the case remains to be seen here in the spring of 2025.
First Lady Casey DeSantis has kept the idea alive that she might enter the race. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez says he is still considering getting into the contest. Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson was reportedly considering his own bid, although that was before Trump stepped in and endorsed Donalds (before the congressman himself had officially announced).
Early polls show that the Trump endorsement is a big deal for Donalds.
As Donalds begins his campaign, Florida’s top Republicans are in disarray, with a tentative budget deal between the state House and Senate now off the table, according to state legislative leaders in comments made on Friday.
Donalds assured the audience that “they’re going to figure this out, I promise you that.”
He added that “there will be no RINO (Republicans in Name Only) activity in Tallahasee,” drawing large cheers. “None of that is going to occur.”
He dismissed Democrats, inaccurately claiming that they have now grown so low that they’re behind registered independents in the state.
“We are going to make sure that the Democrats stay exactly as they are in the state of Florida. And that’s not number two, it’s number three,” he said. “Because there are actually more independents than Democrats now.”
As of April 30, the Florida Division of Elections website shows that there are 5.5 million people registered as Republicans and 4.32 million registered Democrats in the state, with 3.58 million registered as No Party Affiliation. Another 425,882 are listed as registered with minor parties.
Donalds was introduced to the crowd by his wife, Erika, a former member of the Collier County School Board who now serves as the chair of the Florida state chapter of the America First Policy Institute. She described the Tea Party movement that they joined.
“We got angry at what we saw the government doing, making decisions that were ruining our economy, bailing out people and companies that didn’t deserve it, while we were working our butts off to pay all of our bills and do things the right way. That’s what got us involved in politics,” she said.