{"id":163275,"date":"2026-02-21T00:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/163275\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T00:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:23:10","slug":"rep-donalds-holds-listening-tour-in-tampa-over-health-care-property-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/163275\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Donalds holds listening tour in Tampa over health care, property insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Leading Leading GOP candidate for FL governor holding town hall<\/a> <\/p>\n

The leading Republican contender to become the next governor of Florida is in Tampa Friday evening. Congressman Byron Donalds of Fort Myers is holding a town hall on health care and insurance. FOX 13’s Evan Axelbank reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TAMPA, Fla. – The Republican candidate who is leading in the polls to become the party’s nominee for governor held a listening session Friday in Tampa <\/a>focused on health care<\/a> and property insurance.<\/p>\n

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fort Myers) has been leading in the early polls, thanks to an endorsement from President Trump.<\/p>\n

“I want to make sure that we’re in every part of our state talking to voters, talking to our citizens, really learning from them what they think is important,” Donalds said.<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

Donalds is still fighting for a nomination against three contenders who are just getting their own campaigns started.<\/p>\n

Former House Speaker Paul Renner, Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins and political commentator James Fishback are also in the race, though they seldom crack 10% in the polls<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

On health care, Donalds is pushing for health savings accounts to be partially subsidized by the federal government, in hopes that giving a choice would decrease the impact of Obamacare regulations.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Regarding the big issue in the legislature right now, property taxes, Donalds says he backs the plan put forward by the House that would cut all property taxes that don’t go to schools.<\/p>\n

READ: Clock ticking for Florida lawmakers to strike deal on property tax changes<\/a><\/p>\n

Donalds insisted that there would still be enough money to fund local government services.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“I support the governor in his attempt to give real relief and eliminate homestead property taxes for Floridians,” Donalds said in an interview before the listening session. “If they’re not able to get this done, then, as Florida’s next governor, we’re going to pick up the ball. We’re going through every detail of this and making sure there’s a concrete plan going forward. For the people of Florida, about how we contain these local government budgets, because they need to be contained. Let’s be very clear. They’ve doubled over the last decade. They have to get under control.”<\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

Donalds says he is well aware of the recent losing streak Republicans have been on in special elections since President Trump took office again.<\/p>\n

“What we do is make sure you get your voters to the polls,” Donalds said. “A lot of this has been special elections, off-cycle, very low turnout models historically, and Democratic voters are, yes, they’re more motivated.”<\/p>\n

Donalds says the key will be making sure Republican base voters in Florida <\/a>are enthusiastic enough about his candidacy.<\/p>\n

A recent poll for the Republican primary had him nearing 40% support.<\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

Whoever wins the primary will square off against the Democratic nominee, either former Rep. David Jolly or Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.<\/p>\n

The Source: Information for this story was gathered from a poll from Mason-Dixon polling and an interview with Byron Donalds.<\/p>\n

Tampa<\/a>Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading GOP candidate for FL governor holding town hall The leading Republican contender to become the next governor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,629,115,99,135,137,136,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-163275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-hillsborough","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-tampa","13":"tag-tampa-headlines","14":"tag-tampa-news","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}