{"id":297943,"date":"2026-06-06T01:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/297943\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T01:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:06:22","slug":"orange-county-mayor-jerry-demings-suspends-his-run-for-florida-governor-due-to-prostate-cancer-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/297943\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings suspends his run for Florida governor due to prostate cancer diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/orange-county\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Orange County <\/a>Mayor Jerry Demings is suspending his gubernatorial campaign after being diagnosed with a &#8220;treatable form&#8221; of <a href=\"http:\/\/cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/prostate-cancer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">prostate cancer.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Demings revealed the diagnosis after his State of the County speech Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement leaves former U.S. Rep. David Jolly as the only major candidate in the Democratic field on the eve of the qualifying period for the statewide office.<\/p>\n<p>In a released statement, Demings said he had looked &#8220;forward to articulating my vision for our state on the trail through the primary and into November.&#8221; He also thanked his campaign staff and family &#8220;for all the sacrifices they&#8217;ve made in the interest of public service for all these years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I came to this conclusion to suspend my candidacy in the interest of my family and my health,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Demings&#8217; wife Val Demings served in the U.S. House from 2017 to 2023. She lost a bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022 to then-Sen. Marco Rubio, who is now U.S. Secretary of State.<\/p>\n<p>Jolly quickly wished Demings &#8220;a full recovery.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mayor Demings has dedicated his life to public service, fighting with passion, mettle, and faith. I know he&#8217;ll bring that same spirit to this new chapter,&#8221; Jolly posted on X.<\/p>\n<p>Demings, a former Orlando police chief and former Orange County sheriff, has been mayor since 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Demings launched his campaign in November but has lagged Jolly in fundraising and polling.<\/p>\n<p>As of March 31, Demings had raised $479,447 compared to $2.8 million by Jolly.<\/p>\n<p>Campaign finance reports for the April 1 through May 31 period are due June 10.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, an online poll of 542 likely-voters by San Francisco-based Change Research, released May 17 had Jolly at 42 percent to Demings&#8217; 27 percent.<\/p>\n<p>An Emerson College poll in April put the race at 21 percent for Jolly to 10 percent for Demings, with 69 percent listed as &#8220;other.&#8221; A James Madison Institute poll in February showed Jolly leading Demings 31 percent to 23 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The Change Research poll also put Jolly ahead of Republican frontrunner Congressman Bryon Donalds in a hypothetical November matchup.<\/p>\n<p>Most other polls show Donalds, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump, leading Jolly by about 3 percentage points, with about 11 percent still undecided or supporting another candidate.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to Donalds, the Republican field includes former House Speaker Paul Renner and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins.<\/p>\n<p>Qualifying for state office begins at noon Monday and ends at noon, June 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings is suspending his gubernatorial campaign after being diagnosed with a &#8220;treatable form&#8221; of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1158,1812,28,30,29,1335,139,99,81586,34527,33739,34990],"class_list":["post-297943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-cancer","tag-democratic-party","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-politics","tag-prostate-cancer","tag-republican-party","tag-u-s-house-of-representatives","tag-united-states-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297943","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=297943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}