![\"Greg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1578b3ba-93e1-456b-b61f-864993b58487_1739564556.png\")
<\/a>ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\nThe Republican candidates trailing South Florida Congressman Byron Donalds in recent and not-so-recent polls in the gubernatorial race are running out of time. <\/p>\n
The Aug. 18 primary election is earlier than usual, turnout for a midterm election primary has been hovering around 26.5% and, as of Thursday, Florida Division of Elections records showed more than 425,000 people had already made their decisions and returned their vote-by-mail ballots. <\/p>\n
Donalds, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump, could be the first African-American elected Governor if he becomes the party\u2019s nominee and successfully keeps the governor\u2019s office in GOP hands. His polling average this year has him at 49% among Republican voters, according to RealClearPolitics, while his primary opponents remain in single digits. <\/p>\n
But the man who currently occupies the office next door to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, hopes to pull off an upset. Collins released an ad this week showing the decorated, Purple Heart, Green Beret wearing shorts to show the lower leg he lost in combat. <\/p>\n
The commercial begins, \u201cMike One,\u201d playing the audio of his Army radio transmission when he was wounded. <\/p>\n
The ad continues, \u201cThose were my words, after a Jihadi bullet tore into my arm.\u201d <\/p>\n
Also spending big on newly-released commercials is former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner. In it, while walking through what appears to be a warehouse, Renner says, \u201cThe politicians just don\u2019t get it. Public insults and TikTok videos are not leadership.\u201d <\/p>\n
And James Fishback, the investor, just won a key court decision, upholding his residency qualifications and allowing him to stay on the ballot. <\/p>\n
But with less than three weeks to go and early voting ramping up, will the ads, the last-minute campaigning, and phone banking make a difference among the Republican voters who will choose their party\u2019s nominee for Florida governor? <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never too late but it\u2019s clearly an uphill battle to overtake Donalds at this point,\u201d said Susan MacManus, professor emeritus of political science at the University of South Florida. <\/p>\n
She reminds us that voters, especially for primary elections that historically have weak turnout, are just now tuning in to the races and listening to what many of the candidates are saying. If that\u2019s the case, it could open the door for Fishback, Renner, and Collins to turn the tables on Donalds. <\/p>\n
MacManus added, \u201cWe don\u2019t have a history of high turnout in primaries, so in terms of trying to generate last-minute, \u2018OK, I kind of like this person and I\u2019m going to vote after all,\u2019 that\u2019s what you\u2019re really after right now.\u201d <\/p>\n
But it sure isn\u2019t stopping the flow of contributions, with Collins, Renner, and Fishback having collected at least a combined $16 million in the past 10 months, some from notable donors. <\/p>\n
Julie Jenkins Fanelli, the billionaire Publix supermarket heiress who funded a Jan. 6 rally<\/a> and is a vocal conservative, donated $5 million from her Propel Florida LLC to Collins\u2019 political action committee (PAC), Quiet Professionals Florida. Collins\u2019 committee also received $1 million from United Again PAC, which is backed by Michael Repole, who made billions of dollars from vitaminwater and Bodyarmor SuperDrink. Repole is also co-owner of the United Football League (UFL) which includes a local team, the Orlando Storm<\/a>. <\/p>\n Interestingly, Renner is getting no money from the usual conservative business donor base, including Duke Energy, Florida Power and Light (FP&L) or its parent company, NextEra. And nothing from reliable conservative donors like U.S. Sugar and Publix. But some may also find it odd that Renner, the candidate running fourth in the polls, has gotten the most money from the Republican Party Of Florida, more than $1 million. <\/p>\n For now, the race is Donalds\u2019 to lose, with the rest of the field struggling to play catch-up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida governor’s race: Trailing GOP candidates running out of time to catch Donalds ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The Republican…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24909,27695,22874,16662,28,3291,30,29,146461,28912,146462,88526,2895,44418,12667,146460,24550,2393],"class_list":["post-359309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-ad","tag-collins","tag-commercial","tag-donalds","tag-florida","tag-florida-governor","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gop-candidate","tag-james-fishback","tag-michael-repole","tag-nominee","tag-party","tag-primary-election","tag-race","tag-renner","tag-republican-voter","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359309","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=359309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}