FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 With just weeks to go before Florida voters choose the Republican and Democratic nominees for governor, the Democratic field has gained another candidate.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Dotie Joseph of North Miami has entered the race, saying she believes she\u2019s the right person to lead the state.<\/p>\n
Appearing on \u201cThis Week in South Florida\u201d with Glenna Milberg, Joseph said voters are looking beyond party labels.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people are starting to see it\u2019s not about left versus right, Republican versus Democrat, but it\u2019s really about issues that impact people,\u201d Joseph said.<\/p>\n
Joseph said she decided to run after Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings dropped out of the race following a prostate cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Mayor Demings dropped out of the race, several of us were disappointed. And the more I learned about our current option, the more I felt like we needed an additional option,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Joseph is challenging Democratic frontrunner David Jolly, a former Republican who has positioned himself as a moderate who can work with both sides of the aisle.<\/p>\n
While acknowledging her progressive background, Joseph said she has also worked across party lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I do champion progressive issues, and I also am a very pragmatic Democrat who\u2019s been able to work across the aisle to get quite a bit done in Tallahassee,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Joseph was born in Haiti and moved to Florida in 1982. A former government and civil rights attorney, she has represented Florida\u2019s 108th House District since 2018. The district primarily includes North Miami, Miami Shores and El Portal.<\/p>\n
On the Republican side, several candidates continue to challenge frontrunner Byron Donalds in the race to succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n
The primary election is Aug. 18, and the general election is Nov. 3.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 With just weeks to go before Florida voters choose the Republican and Democratic nominees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-330267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330267","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=330267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}