{"id":239914,"date":"2026-04-21T04:19:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/239914\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T04:19:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:19:20","slug":"jay-collins-attacks-byron-donalds-in-florida-governor-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/239914\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Collins attacks Byron Donalds in Florida governor race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Florida<\/p>\n

Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins speaks about his military service, support for Donald Trump’s policies, and his fondness for Gov. DeSantis to members of the Republican Party of Miami-Dade County on Sunday, September 28, 2025, at Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine in Doral, Florida.<\/p>\n

Carl Juste<\/p>\n

cjuste@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg, FL<\/p>\n

Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who is running as a Republican for Florida governor, unleashed criticism against the GOP front-runner, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, at a news conference Monday.<\/p>\n

Collins said Donalds has \u201cflip-flopped on the issues like a fish out of water.\u201d His campaign handed out a 13-page list of attacks against Donalds that singled out past associates, stock trades, votes in Congress and other issues.<\/p>\n

He also said he thinks Donalds would lose the election to former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, the Democrat who has raised the most money in the race.<\/p>\n

A poll released last week by MDW Communications and Edge Communications, two consulting firms that work with Democrats, showed Donalds leading Jolly by less than a percentage point, with 18% of respondents undecided. The poll did not examine a match-up between Collins and Jolly.<\/p>\n

Another recent poll from Emerson College, conducted in late March, found Donalds leading the two Democratic front-runners for governor, Jolly and Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, by five points and nine points, respectively.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Why hasn\u2019t DeSantis endorsed his Lt. governor\u2019s bid to succeed him in Florida?<\/a><\/p>\n

Donalds\u2019 campaign dismissed Collins\u2019 attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cFailing campaigns stop talking about issues and start attacking the frontrunner,\u201d said Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Donalds\u2019 campaign. \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s endorsed candidate, Byron Donalds, is the conservative fighter who will unite our party and defeat the Democrats and every desperate candidate doing their dirty work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins\u2019 salvo comes as his campaign<\/a> has struggled to gain traction in the GOP gubernatorial primary. He raised about $2 million in the first quarter of 2026 after declaring in January; he has spent a third of that on polls and consulting. Donalds raised $22 million during the same span \u2014 more than all of his opponents combined.<\/p>\n

Donalds has held consistent leads in GOP primary polls, according to a summary compiled by The New York Times, while Collins has struggled to surpass single digits in most polls.<\/p>\n

Collins worked Monday to fend off rumors that he might drop out of the race after his campaign backed out of two events last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not suspending our campaign,\u201d he said at the beginning of his remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pundits will tell you it\u2019s an uphill fight. Good. Nothing good in life is easy,\u201d he added later.<\/p>\n

Collins also said Monday that he was launching a seven-figure statewide media campaign \u201cto tell our story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins criticized Donalds\u2019 ties to Larry Wilcoxson<\/a>, a former senior political adviser and substitute teacher who was charged in 2006 with three counts of child molestation. He was never convicted.<\/p>\n

Donalds\u2019 campaign previously told the Tampa Bay Times that Wilcoxson is not a part of the 2026 team. But the research website OpenSecrets shows Donalds paid Wilcoxson about $134,000 during the 2024 cycle \u2014 well after Wilcoxson\u2019s past actions surfaced in news reports.<\/p>\n

Collins also referenced a 2024 Business Insider article that said Donalds failed to properly disclose up to $1.6 million in congressional stock trades. At the time, a spokesperson for Donalds told Business Insider that the congressman was \u201cworking to reconcile any outstanding infractions and follow all necessary procedure to ensure proper compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvarez, the Donalds campaign\u2019s spokesperson, said Monday that the congressman and his wife, Erika, \u201cdo not control, execute or direct any stock trades,\u201d instead giving trading authority to third-party professionals. All of Donalds\u2019 stock trades \u201chave been reported through proper channels,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Reached by phone Monday, Jolly said he doesn\u2019t have a preference for who Republicans nominate in the governor\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the one with the least amount of money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins speaks about his military service, support for Donald Trump’s policies, and his fondness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-239914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239914","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=239914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}