First up: the seat DeSantis leaves behind.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE RACE
Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since the 1990s, and Republicans currently hold every lever of power in Tallahassee. That’s the uphill climb. But a May poll from The Public Sentiment Institute showed Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly tied at 40 percent each, with 16 percent still undecided — in a state Trump won by double digits. Some polling has Jolly outright ahead: a Change Research survey from mid-May had Jolly leading Donalds 46% to 42% among registered voters. Other polls show Donalds up mid-single digits. This is not a blowout. This is a race. Florida PhoenixCongress.gov
The primary is August 18. General election, November 3.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BYRON DONALDS (R) — THE CANDIDATE WHO SHOWS UP FOR THE CAMERA, NOT THE VOTE
Trump endorsed Donalds in February 2025, calling him a “TOTAL WINNER” who would be “a truly Great and Powerful Governor for Florida.” Donalds jumped into the race five days later. That endorsement has carried him to frontrunner status ever since — Donalds has raised more than $67 million for his campaign, dwarfing every other candidate in the field. houseLimitedgov
Here’s what the endorsement and the money don’t tell you: Donalds has been a member of Congress since 2020, and according to critics citing publicly tracked congressional data, he has missed 161 floor votes — more than double the median for representatives with far longer tenures. His legislative output over nearly six years in office is similarly thin: he’s been the primary sponsor on just two enacted bills during his entire congressional career — one on nuclear energy, one on spending efficiency.
Even his own primary opponents are making this case. Former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner has openly challenged Donalds to compare their records “apples to apples,” pointing specifically at the votes Donalds has talked about taking rather than actually taken. And on the congressional stock-trading ban — an issue with real teeth given how much scrutiny insider trading by lawmakers has drawn nationally — Renner noted Donalds hasn’t signed on to force a vote banning members of Congress from trading stocks while in office.
Translation: a Trump-anointed frontrunner with a nine-figure war chest, a talk-show media presence, and a voting record so thin his own party rivals are using it against him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DAVID JOLLY (D) — THE FORMER REPUBLICAN WHO LEFT AND MEANT IT
Jolly represented the Tampa area in Congress as a Republican from 2014 to 2017, then left the party in large part over his opposition to Trump. He registered as a Democrat in April 2025 to launch this bid, and since then has become a vocal anti-Trump voice and a regular commentator on MSNBC. Florida Phoenix
His stated platform centers on lowering housing and insurance costs, boosting public education funding, and implementing new gun safety measures — explicitly positioning himself as ending “the politics of division” rather than running a mirror-image culture war campaign. Jolly’s campaign has raised $5 million since entering the race in June, plus roughly $2 million more in the first quarter of 2026 alone — a fraction of Donalds’ $67 million, but enough to be a real campaign, not a protest one. Limitedgov
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHY THIS RACE MATTERS TO PROJECT ZERO
This isn’t a state legislature seat. This is the governorship of the third-most-populous state in the country, a seat that controls redistricting influence, judicial appointments, and — as we’ve covered repeatedly in Deep State Club — a state government that has spent years testing how far executive power can be stretched before something breaks.
A tied or single-digit race in a state Trump carried by 13 points isn’t a fluke. It’s a signal. Zero starts here.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SCOREBOARD UPDATE: Race 1 of 13 — Florida Governor. Status: Competitive. Primary: August 18. General: November 3.