Politics
Harrison Fields: Byron Donalds is writing the playbook the GOP should steal
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds is on track to extend that streak on November 3. But the likely margin is not the most important part of this race. How he got here is, and every Republican operative in Washington should be paying attention.
Start with the Primary. Donalds did not inherit this nomination. He entered an 11-candidate field without the sitting Governor’s endorsement. His main opponent was a sitting Lieutenant Governor and decorated Green Beret who ran as the keeper of the DeSantis legacy. An insurgent spent months throwing everything he had at him. Donalds didn’t chase any of it. He stuck to his message, built his organization, and won with 48% of the vote, beating Jay Collins by nearly 23 points. Then he got on stage and called for unity.
That discipline carried into the General Election. National political weather has not been kind to Republicans this cycle, and a lesser candidate would have spent October relitigating cable news fights. Donalds keeps bringing every question home: property insurance, cost of living, and whether a young family can still afford to put down roots in Florida. When half of Floridians name affordability as the state’s biggest problem, that is not a talking point. It is the whole race. He has turned Democratic opponent David Jolly’s insurance plan into a referendum on what Jolly would cost Florida households, and he has kept it there.
What sets this campaign apart, though, is where Donalds has chosen to show up.
He has worked tailgates in Tallahassee on football Saturdays at Florida State. He has stopped by the Theta Chi house. As a Nole and a Theta Chi brother myself, I can tell you no statewide Republican made that a priority when I was in school. Younger voters are the bloc conservatives keep writing off as unreachable.
Donalds treats them as voters worth asking for.
He has preached and listened in Black churches across the state, rooms Republicans have too often conceded before a single ballot is cast. He doesn’t show up to deliver a lecture. He shows up because those congregations are full of small business owners, parents, and homeowners worried about the same insurance bills and grocery prices as everyone else.
And he has spent time at the cafecito windows of Miami-Dade, where the real political conversation in South Florida happens over a colada. That outreach is showing up in the numbers. The latest NBC6 and Telemundo poll has Donalds leading among Hispanic voters.
He has not hidden from the press either. Donalds goes on friendly shows and hostile ones alike, takes the tough questions, and answers them. When it came time to debate, he agreed to three. Jolly, who had once talked about debating a dozen times, walked away from all of them. Unless something changes, Florida will have its first Governor’s race in more than 50 years without a debate. Donalds summed it up in one line on X: “Jolly said 12 debates. Yesterday, Jolly said no debates. Who’s the liar, Dave?” Voters notice who wants to defend his record and who doesn’t.
Then there is Erika Donalds, who may be the most effective surrogate in any race in the country.
She is not a ceremonial campaign spouse. She helped build the school choice movement that made Florida the national model for education freedom, and she speaks about it with the authority of someone who has served on a School Board and launched schools herself. She has also become one of the sharpest conservative voices on artificial intelligence in the classroom. She argues that AI is a tool for opportunity rather than something to fear, provided parents stay in charge.
Her Florida Promise Tour kicked off in South Miami and has taken that message directly to families who are stuck on school choice waitlists. Few candidates for Governor have a partner who can carry an entire policy portfolio. Donalds does, and the campaign uses her well.
The result is a candidate closing strong. A Stetson University poll released last week shows Donalds leading Jolly 52 to 41% among likely voters. A James Madison Institute survey found nearly the same result, 52 to 42. Early voting starts statewide on Saturday.
Step back and look at what Republicans have in Donalds.
He is 47 years old. He was born in Brooklyn and built his life, his family, and his political career in Southwest Florida. He would be the first Black Governor in Florida’s history. He is fluent in economics, comfortable in any room, and unflappable on camera. He has run a campaign that brought new voters into the conversation without giving up a single conservative principle.
That combination does not stay in Tallahassee forever. Florida has a habit of launching national figures, and it is hard to watch this campaign without seeing the outline of a future presidential run.
For now, the national party has a more immediate lesson to learn. For years, Republicans have explained away losses with the same excuse: those voters were never ours to win. Donalds is proving that excuse wrong one tailgate, one church pew, and one cafecito at a time. If the GOP wants to know how to talk to the electorate it keeps ignoring, it doesn’t need another consultant memo. It needs to study Florida in 2026.
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Harrison Fields is a partner at CGCN Group and a former White House principal deputy Press Secretary. He previously served as communications director to Rep. Donalds.
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