Byron Donalds 45%, David Jolly 45%: St. Pete Polls finds the Governor’s race deadlocked with 4 weeks to go

Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly are tied at 45% in a new St. Pete Polls survey for Florida Politics, the pollster’s second straight poll, with the race for Governor within a single point.

A tenth of a point separates them before rounding, with Donalds on top. Another 4% picked someone else and 7% are undecided with four weeks until Election Day.

Both candidates picked up about a point since the pollster’s mid-September survey, which had Donalds at 44% and Jolly at 43%. Undecided fell from 9% to 7%.

Republicans hold an advantage of more than 1.5 million active registered voters over Democrats, 5.65 million to 4.1 million as of Aug. 31. That is 42% of the rolls to 30%, with 28% registered with no party or a minor party.

The sample was weighted to match: 42% Republican, 31% Democratic, and 27% everyone else. Republicans made up 44% of respondents before weighting.

Donalds holds 79% of Republicans, up from 74% in September. Jolly holds 81% of Democrats, unchanged. Jolly takes 15% of GOP voters, and Donalds takes 9% of Democrats. St. Pete Polls reports its demographic breakdowns before weighting.

Jolly leads 49% to 33% among voters outside the two major parties, with 12% undecided and 6% picking someone else. His margin with that group was 12 points in September.

A Mason-Dixon poll for NBC 6 and Telemundo released Tuesday showed Jolly ahead 47% to 28% among independents, with a quarter undecided.

Men backed Jolly 49% to 41%, and women backed Donalds 49% to 40%. In September, men leaned Jolly by 2 points, and women leaned Donalds by 2. Mason-Dixon showed men for Donalds at 55% to 33% and women for Jolly at 49% to 41%.

Voters under 30 back Jolly 62% to 17%, with 13% picking someone else. He leads 54% to 35% among those 30 to 49.

Voters 50 to 69 split 45% Jolly to 43% Donalds after leaning Donalds by 4 points in September. Donalds leads 64% to 30% with voters 70 and older, with 4% of that group undecided.

White voters favor Donalds 53% to 37%, up from a 13-point margin in September. Hispanic voters favor Jolly 54% to 38%, up from 9 points. Mason-Dixon had Hispanic voters favoring Donalds 48% to 43%.

Black voters favor Jolly 65% to 14%, with 16% undecided. Donalds, who would be Florida’s first Black Governor, drew 16% of Black voters in September and 10% in the Mason-Dixon survey.

Jolly leads the Tampa market, his home base and the largest in the survey, 47% to 45%, after trailing there by 5 points in September. He leads Miami 48% to 40% and Orlando 49% to 41%.

Donalds leads West Palm Beach 53% to 38% and his own Fort Myers market 51% to 33%. He leads Jacksonville 50% to 35%, a market with 80 respondents where Jolly led by 12 points last month. The smaller markets have too few respondents to draw conclusions.

Mason-Dixon’s survey, conducted Sept. 28 through Oct. 1 among 625 likely voters, had Donalds ahead 48% to 41%. It was the first public poll since a Stetson University survey in late September to put him up by more than the error margin.

A YouGov survey of 3,813 likely voters fielded Sept. 28 through Oct. 5 had Donalds ahead 47% to 45%. Change Research, a Democratic firm polling for Freedom Project USA, had Jolly ahead 48% to 46% in a survey fielded Sept. 25-27.

Donalds has not dropped below 44% in a public poll since the Aug. 18 Primary. Jolly has ranged from 39% to 48%.

The RealClearPolling average had Donalds ahead by 6 points before this week’s releases. Decision Desk HQ rates the race a toss-up. Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections rate it “Lean Republican.”

Donalds has raised more than $135 million between his campaign and his Friends of Byron Donalds political committee through Sept. 30, about eight times Jolly’s total. Jolly raised just over $1 million in the week ending Sept. 25, his best week since August.

Donalds released two ads this week featuring the endorsements of President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump has promised to rally twice with Donalds before Election Day. Jolly is airing an ad that calls Donalds a liar on taxes, drilling, and socialism. The two have not agreed to a debate.

St. Pete Polls conducted the survey Oct. 5-7 for Florida Politics, using automated phone calls for 57% of responses and peer-to-peer text messages for 43%. Respondents were drawn at random from the state’s registered voter file as of Sept. 14. Results were weighted by political party, race, age, gender, and media market to match Florida’s active voter population.

The survey excluded voters who said they do not plan to vote in the General Election. Of those who remained, 96% said they plan to vote for Governor; 4% were unsure. The survey of 836 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.

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Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team performed editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review.