---
title: "Florida Might Be Winnable Again, but National Democrats Are Buying Milk Instead"
description: "David Jolly is within striking distance of Byron Donalds for governor; the party’s money is in Texas, and everyone knows it"
author: "Nate Ledger"
published: 2026-10-03T10:00:44.836Z
modified: 2026-10-03T17:59:56Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/florida-might-be-winnable-again-but-national-democrats-are-b-a979da
language: en
tags: ["politics", "economy", "trump", "florida", "campaign-finance", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Florida Might Be Winnable Again, but National Democrats Are Buying Milk Instead

*David Jolly is within striking distance of Byron Donalds for governor; the party’s money is in Texas, and everyone knows it*

By Nate Ledger · October 3, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/florida-might-be-winnable-again-but-national-democrats-are-b-a979da

## In brief

- Donalds and an aligned committee raised over $134M by Sept 25, versus $16.6M for Jolly, campaign finance reports show
- Democrats had bought just $3M of Florida airtime as of Thursday, less than in nearly any other governor’s race, per AdImpact
- Donalds won under 50% in the August GOP primary despite Trump’s endorsement; DeSantis waited until after it to endorse
- Miami elected its first Democratic mayor in three decades in December; Democrats also flipped GOP-leaning special-election seats
- Jolly is lobbying 2028 hopefuls like Pritzker ($50,000) and Emanuel to invest; Schale calls the party’s retreat short-sighted

At a meeting with Haitian American leaders and voters in North Lauderdale on Thursday, Jean Philippeaux put the question to David Jolly about as directly as a voter can. A Republican ad has been claiming for weeks that Jolly, the Democratic nominee for Florida governor, supports a “hurricane tax” — Jolly calls it patently false — and Philippeaux wanted to know: “When are you going to respond to what you call lies about you?” Jolly said a counterpunch was coming imminently. Then he explained the actual problem. “We’re not going to be able to scale up the way he has,” he said of his opponent, Republican Rep. Byron Donalds. “It’s a function of money. He has a lot of money.”

That is, if anything, an understatement. Donalds and an aligned political committee had raised more than $134 million as of September 25, campaign finance reports show; Jolly had $16.6 million. That is better than eight to one. And as of Thursday, Jolly and the Democrats had bought just $3 million of airtime in the entire state of Florida, according to AdImpact — less than Democratic candidates have spent on TV in all but a handful of governors’ races, a list that includes Colorado, Massachusetts and New York, which are not exactly battlegrounds. The various arms of the Democratic Party are mostly on the sidelines, and the liberal megadonors haven’t shown up either.

The Senate race has the same shape. Angie Nixon, the democratic socialist nominated against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, has run a spirited, base-energizing campaign on a shoestring. “I believe that organized people will beat big money any day, but right now we’re going against gigantic money,” she told a Fort Lauderdale church congregation on Thursday, asking members to part with “a little bit of treasure.” Bernie Sanders has pledged $250,000 and will rally with her this month, though top Senate Democrats are focused on contests they find more winnable, one person familiar with the discussions said.

Why the cold shoulder? Because Florida is expensive, and the national party’s wallet is not. John Morgan, the Orlando personal-injury lawyer and Democratic megadonor, put the triage in grocery terms: “If you go to the grocery store with only $100 to buy groceries for the week, are you gonna buy the apple pie? No, you’re going to say, ‘let’s get the milk, let’s get the meat, let’s get the vegetables.’ There might not be enough money for dessert.” “Florida is dessert,” he added. “Texas is meat” — a reference to the [costly Texas Senate fight that has vacuumed up donor attention](https://rews.cc/a/democrats-see-best-chance-in-decades-to-flip-a-texas-senate--b99233). History backs the stinginess: Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic governor in 30 years. After narrow, expensive losses in 2018, Ron DeSantis won re-election by 19 points in 2022, and Trump carried the state by 13 in 2024.

## 2028 and beyond

Jolly’s counterargument is aimed at people with presidential ambitions. He has publicly and privately urged Democratic officials to look again, figuring a tight race would lure in the growing crowd of 2028 hopefuls. “If they became the champion of David Jolly and David Jolly wins, David Jolly’s going to remember they helped,” he said. “I don’t mean that in a transactional way. It’s just the enlightened self-interest of someone looking to run for president.” So far the tangible haul is thin: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker campaigned with Jolly and gave his committee $50,000 last month — pocket change against the $65 million the Hyatt heir has poured into his own re-election — and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel campaigns with Jolly next week. DGA spokesman Kevin Donohue says the group is “ready to capitalize on any opportunity to make a real difference in this race in the final stretch,” which is a sentence that commits no money whatsoever.

Steve Schale, the strategist behind Barack Obama’s winning Florida campaigns, thinks this is short-sighted: skip Florida now and 2028 gets harder, with a post-2030-census electoral map he expects will run through the South. “And we’ve had success in Florida more often than anywhere else in the Sun Belt,” he said. “That’s where showing signs of life this cycle is important.”

And there are signs of life. Miami elected a Democratic mayor in December for the first time in three decades. In August, Democrats flipped Sarasota County school board seats, ousting a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, and they’ve won special elections for GOP-leaning legislative seats, including the state House district containing Mar-a-Lago. The same forces shaping the midterms nationally — an unpopular Republican president and cost-of-living anxiety — are present, plus local wrinkles: Hispanic voters showing signs of drifting from Trump, a long-troubled property insurance market, and a data-center backlash that has turned Donalds from booster of their expansion into a defender of local governments that refuse them.

Republicans aren’t panicking, one GOP fundraiser told CNN, but they are nervous, and the tells are visible. Donalds failed to crack 50 percent in the August Republican primary despite Trump’s unequivocal endorsement, which DeSantis conspicuously withheld until afterward. Last month Trump gave Donalds a speaking slot at his Dallas midterm convention — slots the president said were reserved for candidates “in tight races.” JD Vance rallied Central Florida Republicans on Thursday, and Trump plans to campaign with Donalds too. Donalds says he welcomes the visit and rejects the idea it reflects concern. “If Florida’s voters demonstrate we’re purple again and elect a Democratic governor, every presidential candidate, including Republicans, now have to be here for the next two years,” Jolly says. Thirty years of history says dessert is expensive. One close race says someone in Dallas has checked the menu.