{"id":375625,"date":"2026-08-19T14:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375625\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T14:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:02:13","slug":"who-is-byron-donalds-the-trump-ally-is-favored-to-become-floridas-next-governor-after-winning-gop-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/375625\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Byron Donalds? The Trump ally is favored to become Florida’s next governor after winning GOP primary."},"content":{"rendered":"

In February 2025, President Trump made a surprising endorsement<\/a> in the Florida governor’s race. It wasn’t who he chose, but when he decided to back them that was unexpected. The primary was still 18 months away and the man he endorsed hadn’t even declared his candidacy yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, Trump’s word carries so much weight in the Republican Party, particularly in his newly adopted home state, that Rep. Byron Donalds quickly became the frontrunner in the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Byron Donalds would be a truly Great and Powerful Governor for Florida and, should he decide to run, will have my Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump wrote<\/a> on Truth Social at the time. “RUN, BYRON, RUN!”<\/p>\n

Donalds formally entered the race<\/a> five days after Trump’s post. Throughout his campaign, polls showed him well ahead<\/a> of the other Republican candidates. After easily winning the primary on Tuesday, he is now the favorite to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is ineligible to run for a third term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It has been more than three decades since Florida elected a Democrat<\/a> as its governor, but some of the GOP’s victories during that span have been extremely close. Republicans are counting on Donalds to keep their winning streak alive as he gears up for what polls suggest could be another close contest against Democratic nominee David Jolly<\/a>, a former Republican congressman who left the GOP during Trump’s first presidential term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here’s a guide to who Byron Donalds is, what he stands for and what his potential election might mean for America’s third most populous state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who is Byron Donalds?<\/p>\n

Donalds, 47, was born in New York City in 1978. He is of Jamaican and Panamanian heritage and was raised by his mother, describing himself<\/a> as the “product of a single-parent household.” Donalds grew up in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn before moving to Florida for college. He graduated from Florida State University in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing, and stayed in Florida to launch a career in the banking and insurance industries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Donalds has said that his inspiration to go into politics came from anger over how Congress handled the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse and the ensuing bank bailouts. A registered Democrat at the time, Donalds opted to switch parties and embraced the fiscally conservative worldview of the burgeoning tea party movement, which advocated for low taxes and reduced government spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I got mad,” Donalds said during a podcast interview<\/a> earlier this month. “It pissed me off. That’s how I got into politics and from there got involved in the Tea Party.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a young Black man, Donalds stood out within a movement that was largely associated with older white voters. In 2012, he joined a crowded GOP primary for an open House seat, but finished fifth<\/a> out of six candidates. In 2016, he was elected to the Florida state legislature.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He ran for Congress again in 2020 and, after being labeled<\/a> a “Rising Star” by Trump following his primary win, was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time. He was the third Black Republican<\/a> in history to represent Florida on Capitol Hill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When he joined Congress, Donalds was part of a group of conservative lawmakers<\/a> called the “Freedom Force,” who were dedicated to countering the influence of progressive lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. One of his first acts after being sworn in was to challenge the certification<\/a> of the 2020 presidential election. He has repeatedly said that he does not believe<\/a> that Joe Biden was a legitimately elected president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Representative<\/p>\n

Donalds stands in the crowd as Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pa., Oct. 19, 2024.<\/p>\n

(JIM WATSON via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In 2023, his name was raised as a potential House speaker multiple times during a drawn-out leadership crisis that ultimately led to Rep. Mike Johnson being elected speaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Donalds has been married to his wife, Erika Lees, since 2003. They have three children together. According to Donalds’s first wife, Bisa Hall, Donalds began dating Lees while he and Hall were still married. Hall told WGCU News<\/a> their marriage was not romantic and that they only wed to resolve what she described as a “residency issue” affecting her ability to attend college in Florida.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Donalds was captured on camera<\/a> having a heated argument with a woman inside a supermarket in Naples, Fla. The woman, Kelly Mason, who is currently a member of the Collier County School Board, filed a civil lawsuit over the incident in July, accusing him of assault. In a statement, Donalds’s campaign called the lawsuit “baseless” and “politically motivated.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

What does Donalds stand for?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Donalds has closely aligned himself with Trump’s MAGA policies. The words “Enact the Trump Agenda” appear in large bold letters<\/a> at the top of the “issues” page of his campaign website.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He has endorsed Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, including arguing that undocumented immigrants facing deportation should not be entitled to due process<\/a> under the law and criticizing the Supreme Court for striking down the president’s attempt to revoke birthright citizenship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Donalds is staunchly conservative on social issues. He supports placing strict limits on abortion access<\/a>, wants to expand gun rights, has called for eliminating “woke ideology” in schools and supports restrictions on transgender rights, including barring transgender women<\/a> and girls from women’s sports. Donalds has also said he does not believe<\/a> in man-made climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If elected, he has pledged to block<\/a> “sanctuary” jurisdictions that don’t comply with federal immigration enforcement from receiving state funding, give parents more influence<\/a> over their children’s education and reform Florida’s struggling property insurance industry<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What’s next?<\/p>\n

The last time Florida elected a new governor with Trump in the White House was in the “blue wave” midterm cycle of 2018, when DeSantis narrowly defeated<\/a> Democrat Andrew Gillum by less than half a percentage point. Though the national political environment appears to be swinging against the GOP again this year, polls have shown Donalds holding a steady lead<\/a> of roughly five percentage points in head-to-head general election matchups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February 2025, President Trump made a surprising endorsement in the Florida governor’s race. It wasn’t who he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[445,28,30,29,1422,9105,412],"class_list":["post-375625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-byron-donalds","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-state-university","tag-president-trump","tag-ron-desantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375625","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=375625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}