One day before voters will ultimately choose between them, gubernatorial candidates Byron Donalds and David Jolly descended upon an unlikely battleground — ruby red Polk County, where Democrats are turning out at a higher rate than Republicans.
Despite Republicans holding a voter registration edge of 1.5 million voters across Florida, Democratic turnout has been strong statewide through vote-by-mail and early voting, keeping candidates like Jolly and U.S. Senate Candidate Angie Nixon in the game as Election Day approaches.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly speaks during a rally at Parkview Christian Center in Haines City on Monday, November 2, 2026, in an effort to gain support and votes as he makes stops across Florida on the eve of Election Day. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
That strength is being seen not just in blue strongholds like Orange County — where Democrats are running up huge turnout numbers — but also in the normally crimson exurban areas such as Polk.
More Republicans have voted in Polk than Democrats overall, thanks to a large registration advantage, but 40% of Democrats have cast ballots compared with 30% of Republicans as of Monday, a concerning trend for the GOP that led to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis himself warning his party on social media last week about the county’s lagging turnout.
Overall, according to the Division of Elections, 38.2 percent of the state’s registered GOP voters have cast ballots compared to 49 percent of the state’s registered Democrats.
With the GOP’s registration advantage, that still comes out to 2.18 million Republican votes cast compared to 2.03 million Democrats, meaning Democrats will have to appeal strongly across party lines and with independent voters to claim victory on election day.
Early in-person voting ended in Florida on Sunday, but mailed ballots will be counted as long as they are received by 7 p.m. on election day.
“Every vote is now available to us, including Republicans,” Jolly said. “We did see in the data the same thing that Gov. DeSantis saw.”
Republicans famously vote in huge numbers on Election Day and could potentially swamp any gains Democrats have made – something Donalds is banking on tomorrow.
Donalds, who appeared Monday at a Beef ‘O’ Brady’s restaurant in Lakeland, urged attendees to tell the people they know to vote Tuesday and that “Florida is on the line.”
“Florida has not happened by accident … We have to get out and vote. That’s what is required right now,” he said. “The crazy stays in California … That is not coming to the great state of Florida. Let’s get out and vote. Let’s get out and win.”
Byron Donalds speaks as wife Erika Donalds look on during a stop of the Defending the Florida Dream Bus Tour stop at a Beef ‘O’ Brady’s in Lakeland, on Monday, November 2, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
Jolly, who appeared at Parkview Christian Life Center Church in Haines City, told a crowd of churchgoers and union labor that he believed the race was close because “there’s a new coalition in American politics.”
Afterward, he told reporters he believed that coalition includes former Republicans like himself, along with MAGA loyalists of President Donald Trump who disagree with actions like the Iran War in his second term.
Particularly, he believes his promise to sign a one-year moratorium on building hyper-scale data centers gives him a fighting chance in Polk, where DeSantis four years ago won by 30 points, carrying 65% of the vote.
“The story’s gonna be about a people in the deep red state of Florida who rose up, and raised our voices and exercised their vote and said, ‘We’re not going to do this anymore, we’re going in a new direction’,” he exclaimed. “And when we do that, we don’t just win an election folks … we’ve just changed the world.”
In Seminole, where Republicans hold only a slight registration advantage, a greater percentage of Democrats have voted, with 47% casting ballots before election day. Less than 40% of Republicans have voted.
Democrats are even outperforming Republicans in Sumter County, home of The Villages and a bastion of conservative politics. So far it has the highest turnout in Central Florida, with nearly 55% of voters casting ballots. Nearly 63% of registered Democrats there have voted, compared with nearly 56% of Republicans.
In Volusia County, where Trump rallied voters last week, more than 48% of Democratic voters had cast early and mail-in ballots, while the same was true for nearly 40% of GOP voters. The county’s overall turnout was just shy of 39%, pulled down by decline-to-state voters who typically turn out in lower proportions.
“In every county in this state, Democrats are showing up at rates that we have not seen in years,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried stated in an emailed fundraising pitch Monday morning. “If we can keep that energy up on Election Day, I believe that we will take back Florida.”
At the Jolly event, Christine Boland said she hadn’t yet voted but was excited to cast her ballot for him.
“I’m a firm believer in what he’s standing for,” she said. “We’re coming out in numbers. The lines have been very long…I think it’s going to be a very close.”
Ed Chambers, of Lakeland, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said his union is supporting Jolly in hopes of moving past “divisiveness.” He believes Jolly’s message of unity is playing well with voters.
“People are fed up,” Chambers said. “The economy is bad. There’s a lot of farmers in Polk, but there’s more than that … they’re just not energized.”
Donalds told reporters after his Lakeland event that he had already planned the visit to Polk County before DeSantis’ X post about the lagging turnout there.
He acknowledged Democrats are voting in higher numbers than in the 2022 midterm election, but said he is banking on a large spike in GOP turnout on Tuesday, adding that is what happened in the state’s primary election in August.
“Early voting amongst Republicans was pretty calm and pretty quiet. Democrats were obviously voting in large numbers during the early voting and mail periods. And then Election Day happened [and] 800,000 Republicans showed up,” Donalds said, nearly doubling Democratic turnout that day. “We think that we’re going to see a similar effort tomorrow.”
Donalds was joined onstage by a who’s who of Florida Republican officials, including U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, Attorney General James Uthmeier, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
Simpson reminded attendees that DeSantis in 2018 only narrowly beat Democrat Andrew Gillum for the governorship by a margin of 0.4%. Collins warned them that the GOP’s voter registration advantage doesn’t matter unless people show up and vote, and Ingoglia said the entire Republican ticket will need massive turnout on Tuesday.
Senator Ashley Moody speaks during a stop of the Defending the Florida Dream Bus Tour stop at a Beef ‘O’ Brady’s in Lakeland, on Monday, November 2, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
Moody, who was appointed last year by DeSantis, is taking on Nixon to serve the remaining two years of former U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s term. She told the crowd the midterms are going to be close and that GOP voters need to turn out in full force despite what has been a rain-soaked final few days.
“We feel good about where we are. There’s a lot of momentum moving into tomorrow. But no doubt we need people to vote. Whether it’s weather or flooding, we don’t want anything to keep people away from the polls,” Moody told reporters after the event.
Nixon made another appearance at the University of Central Florida late Monday afternoon, her last appeal to young voters to make their voices heard at the polls. About 80 people attended the rally.
Nixon fired up the young crowd saying she would be their champion as “a major proponent of free public education, period. From birth, meaning daycare, all the way to four-year college, that should be free.”
Nixon has more support than Moody among Gen Z, polls show, but those younger voters don’t always cast ballots as reliably as older ones, who favor Moody.
Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, the leading candidate for mayor of Orlando next year, spoke too, urging students to think about what they struggle with — public transportation, access to education and medical care — and telling them they could trust Nixon to fight for them and their needs.
Joshua Mueller, a Valencia College student, said that more than anything he is “so happy to have an actual progressive candidate for Florida.”
Staff writer Annie Martin, University of Central Florida journalism student Dina Santiago, and the News Service of Florida contributed to this report.