Trump-endorsed Byron Donalds Makes Run For Florida Governor Official

Rep. Byron Donalds is officially running to become governor of Florida, following President Donald Trump’s endorsement in a state that has become a conservative bastion of the MAGA movement.

“After a lot of prayer, a lot of thoughts with my family and my friends, I'm here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida,” Donalds said Tuesday night to Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

Donalds, whose congressional district includes Naples and Fort Myers, received Trump’s endorsement in a Feb. 20 Truth Social post. Trump often teased Donalds about the race during his 2024 presidential run — including in front of top donors — and considered him as a possible running mate.

But Donald is facing the prospect of running against Florida first lady Casey DeSantis, who’s been heavily involved in her husband’s political rise — and someone Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he sees as the best person to carry on his conservative policy legacy. Casey DeSantis hasn’t made a run official but she and her husband have been calling donors about the possibility.

Donalds sidestepped a question about Casey DeSantis during his Fox News interview, noting he was the only candidate in the race, and praised Ron DeSantis as a “great governor” who had done a “tremendous job.” He added it was time to focus on the future.

“Now, the job is to keep the best state in the country as the best state in the country,” he said, “and so that's going to be the mission at hand.”

He highlighted the state’s high property insurance costs as a focus and said he wanted to make Florida the “most business friendly state in the country” and to “take the lead on cryptocurrency and digital assets.”

Donalds, 46, is a three-term member who is also in the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative group which counts DeSantis as a founding member. He was a regular surrogate during Trump’s presidential campaign and held events in battleground states to reach out to Black voters.

The former state legislator helped lead the expansion of the state’s school voucher program. He and his wife, Erika Donalds, have long been advocates of policies that make it easier for families to choose education options outside of public schools.

But education policy also caused Donalds’ falling-out with DeSantis. Donalds, who is Black, said in 2023 that African American history standards for middle schoolers that were in the works in Florida needed to be “adjusted.” The language he and others were concerned about said enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

The governor doubled down and recently said he doesn’t see Donalds as having contributed to Florida’s rightward shift or conservative policy victories. He also suggested Donalds should be focused on his work in Congress rather than running for governor.

Donalds seemed to address some of those criticisms during his Fox News interview, saying he was “not going anywhere.” The congressman does not have to resign from his current role to run for governor.

“For a long time, I've been in the trenches in a lot of these battles dealing with conservatism,” he said, pointing to a bill signed into law under then-Gov. Rick Scott, now a U.S. senator, that allowed parents to review materials in schools.

“We're going to continue to be the free state and the best state going forward,” he said.

Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, blasted Donalds just minutes after his television appearance. She called him a “dangerous political opportunist who should be nowhere near the governor’s mansion” and criticized him for skipping votes and “defending insurrectionists” — a reference to his apparent use of proxy voting and the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. She also called him “unqualified” and said he lacked any executive experience needed for the job.

DeSantis himself once relied on Donalds when first seeking the governor’s mansion, including help with debate prep. The 2024 presidential race, in which Donalds endorsed Trump, shrunk DeSantis’ inner circle. Now, the governor is mostly talking about his wife as a possible successor.

The prospect of a Donalds vs. DeSantis primary could trigger a bitter contest. Online supporters of Gov. DeSantis have repeatedly circulated information on Donalds’ past, including arrests when he was younger. He was arrested for marijuana possession in 1997 — though the charges were dropped — and previous media reports point to a 2000 charge for bribery in which the court records were sealed. During a 2014 interview with a southwest Florida television station, Donalds said the second arrest was for theft, stemming from a woman he gave his bank card to after she promised to pay him.

The Trump endorsement, considered a coveted prize in GOP politics, could freeze out any other entrants in a state whose battleground status has been wiped away. Trump won Florida by 13 points in November and often spends time at his properties in the state. DeSantis, too, has been popular in the state they both call home and won his reelection by 19 points in 2022.

DeSantis has predicted that if his wife were to run, she would eclipse his record. But polling from 2018 showed that Trump’s primary endorsement of DeSantis was instrumental in lifting him from little-known member of Congress to GOP frontrunner.

Donalds is originally from Brooklyn and often talks about the sacrifices his mother made to send him to private school, and how that spurred his personal success. Erika Donalds is a visiting fellow with the Center for Education Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Donalds hired several top campaign operatives with ties to Trump, including pollster Tony Fabrizio and Ryan Smith, who was a business partner with deputy chief of staff James Blair. He also hired fundraiser Megan McKinley, who used to work for Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Senate.

Donalds was first elected to the Florida Legislature in 2016 before running in a heavily contested and negative GOP primary for Congress four years later. During his time in Congress, he has become a staunch defender of Trump and was even floated at one point as a potential candidate for House speaker amid the GOP schism over former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.