{"id":34132,"date":"2025-11-05T10:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/34132\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T10:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:33:11","slug":"david-jolly-bolsters-campaign-for-governor-with-tallahassee-heavyweights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/34132\/","title":{"rendered":"David Jolly bolsters campaign for governor with Tallahassee heavyweights"},"content":{"rendered":"

When\u00a0David Jolly\u00a0drew an opponent in the race<\/a> for the Democratic nomination to be Florida\u00a0governor,\u00a0he\u00a0turned\u00a0to Tallahassee to\u00a0fortify\u00a0his campaign.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Jolly quickly expanded his leadership team and drafted four Tallahasseans as\u00a0campaign co-chairs and advisors, and a fifth for joint campaign appearances\u00a0next\u00a0month.<\/p>\n

Jolly has been\u00a0conducting a solitary campaign<\/a> since\u00a0June, urging Democrats to unify under his banner to claim the governor\u2019s mansion after losing\u00a0seven consecutive gubernatorial elections.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Jolly announces in an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat that he is running as a democratic candidate for the Governor of Florida on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings filed for the Democratic nomination\u00a0Friday,\u00a0Oct. 31,<\/p>\n

Demings\u00a0is in his second term as Orange County Mayor and\u00a0enters the race\u00a0amidst questions whether\u00a0the Democratic base \u2013 <\/a>namely\u00a0African American,\u00a0and female voters\u00a0\u2013 are accepting Jolly as the potential Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n

Jolly has wandered in the political wilderness since leaving the GOP in 2016. He was a no-party affiliated voter before being a cofounder of the Forward\u00a0Party and\u00a0then joining the Democrats earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\"Jerry<\/p>\n

Jerry Demings formal announcement of a gubernatorial campaign is expected Thursday, November 6, 2025<\/p>\n

On Monday\u00a0and Tuesday, 14 Democratic leaders from across the state joined the Jolly campaign and embraced his\u00a0pledge to lower the cost of living in Florida.<\/p>\n

Former Tallahassee Congresswoman Gwen Graham, a Democrat who was redistricted out of office in 2016, will reengage in Florida politics by joining Jolly for\u00a0freewheeling townhalls in St. Petersburg\u00a0Dec. 4,\u00a0and Sarasota\u00a0Dec. 11.<\/p>\n

Jolly and Graham served together in Congress when then-Republican Jolly and Graham worked together on gun control measures in 2014. Jolly said he keeps a photo of himself, Graham and four others in deep discussion of how to ban bump stocks, which enables\u00a0the rapid firing of rifles, in his office as a\u00a0reminder of the bipartisan effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe both believe\u00a0our\u00a0state\u2019s best days are ahead, and\u00a0I am excited to join my friend for a few days on the trail where, together, we can share David\u2019s vision for Florida\u2019s future,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

Jolly\u00a0also\u00a0responded to the Demings challenge\u00a0by naming Tallahassee attorney and political strategist Sean Pittman as\u00a0a campaign co-chair.<\/p>\n

Pittman was a top advisor to the 2018 Democratic nominee Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum who lost the 2018 election <\/a>to Gov. Ron DeSantis by 32,000 votes, or 0.4%<\/p>\n

Pittman said Jolly was \u201cbuilding a coalition that looks like the state we all love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three others from Tallahassee will help shape the Jolly campaign message.<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/p>\n

Sean Pittman chats with friends at the Annual Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce Breakfast on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025.<\/p>\n

Tallahassee Bethel Missionary Baptist Church Pastor the Rev. R.B. Holmes joins the campaign as the Faith Leadership Chair.<\/p>\n

And Gayle Andrews, Tallahassee\u2019s first Black television news anchor, and media consultant, has signed on as a senior campaign advisor.<\/p>\n

In other appointments, Jolly said Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Fort Lauderdale, will\u00a0serve as a co-chair with Pittman.<\/p>\n

In the higher education silo, Jolly turns to Laurence Humphries, a Florida A&M University Foundation board\u00a0member\u00a0and the son of the late legendary FAMU President Frederick Humphries<\/a>, and Suzanne Lewis, a former University of West Florida trustee as advisors.<\/p>\n

And the campaign\u2019s community development and empowerment\u00a0efforts will be led by\u00a0Escambia\u00a0County Commissioner\u00a0Lumon\u00a0May, and Pinellas County Commissioner Rene Flowers.<\/p>\n

James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow on him Twitter: @CallTallahassee.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Gwen Graham, Sean Pittman join David Jolly campaign team<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When\u00a0David Jolly\u00a0drew an opponent in the race for the Democratic nomination to be Florida\u00a0governor,\u00a0he\u00a0turned\u00a0to Tallahassee to\u00a0fortify\u00a0his campaign.\u00a0 Jolly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[23830,1813,23834,23833,23832,3291,23831,8134,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-34132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-campaign-appearances","tag-david-jolly","tag-democratic-leaders","tag-democratic-nomination","tag-democratic-nominee","tag-florida-governor","tag-gwen-graham","tag-jerry-demings","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34132","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=34132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}