{"id":403176,"date":"2026-09-18T03:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T03:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/403176\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T03:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T03:16:14","slug":"poll-byron-donalds-44-david-jolly-43-in-dead-heat-race-for-florida-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/403176\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Byron Donalds 44%, David Jolly 43% in dead-heat race for Florida Governor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly are essentially tied in the race for Governor, according to a new St. Pete Polls survey conducted for Florida Politics.<\/a><\/p>\n

Donalds has 44% support and Jolly has 43% among likely General Election voters. Before rounding, a tenth of a percentage point separates them. Another 4% picked someone else and 9% are undecided with less than seven weeks until Election Day.<\/p>\n

The survey of 913 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The sample was weighted to match Florida\u2019s active voter rolls: 42% Republican, 31% Democratic and 27% no party or minor party. Republicans made up 45% of respondents before weighting.<\/p>\n

Jolly leads 48% to 36% among voters outside the two major parties, with 13% undecided. He also draws more crossover support. The former Republican Congressman from Pinellas County takes 13% of GOP voters, while Donalds, the Naples Congressman endorsed by President Donald Trump, gets 8% of Democrats.<\/p>\n

Donalds holds 74% of Republicans and Jolly holds 81% of Democrats. St. Pete Polls reports its demographic breakdowns before weighting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Donalds won the GOP Primary<\/a> with roughly 48% of the vote after months of attacks from Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, former House Speaker Paul Renner and businessman James Fishback. Jolly took 61% on the Democratic side.<\/p>\n

Voters under 30 back Jolly 65% to 17%, and he leads 53% to 33% among those 30 to 49. Donalds leads 44% to 40% with voters 50 to 69 and 63% to 30% with those 70 and older, a group where only 4% are undecided.<\/p>\n

Donalds, who would be Florida\u2019s first Black Governor, draws 16% of Black voters to Jolly\u2019s 68%, with 12% undecided. A University of North Florida poll<\/a> in July had him at 6% with that group. White voters favor Donalds 50% to 37%. Hispanic voters favor Jolly 48% to 39%.<\/p>\n

Men lean Jolly 45% to 43% and women lean Donalds 44% to 42%, a reversal of the usual gender gap. Both splits are within the margin of error for subsamples that size.<\/p>\n

Donalds leads 47% to 42% in the Tampa media market, the largest in the survey and Jolly\u2019s home base. He also carries his own Fort Myers market 51% to 34% and leads West Palm Beach 48% to 39%. Jolly leads Miami 49% to 41%, Jacksonville 47% to 35% and Orlando 44% to 41%. The smaller markets have too few respondents to draw conclusions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Donalds has polled in the mid-40s all year. He was at 44% in an Emerson College poll<\/a> this Spring, 46% in the UNF survey in July and 45% among likely voters in a James Madison Institute poll<\/a> later that month. He led those polls by 5 to 7 points, with Jolly between 38% and 41%.<\/p>\n

Two surveys released since the Aug. 18 Primary showed Jolly ahead. A Hart Research poll for the Democratic Governors Association<\/a> had him up 46% to 45%. A Change Research poll<\/a> this month had him up 47% to 44%, though pollster Steve Vancore questioned its likely voter screen in a review for Florida Politics.<\/p>\n

Donalds is at 44% or 45% in all three post-Primary surveys, including this one. Jolly has ranged from 43% to 47%.<\/p>\n

The RealClearPolling average<\/a> showed Donalds ahead by 5 points before this survey.<\/p>\n

Donalds and his political committee, Friends of Byron Donalds, spent more than $9 million in the week ending Sept. 4<\/a> and still had more than $41 million on hand. Jolly had less than $6 million and has said he plans to save what he raises for October.<\/p>\n

St. Pete Polls conducted the survey Sept. 15-17 for Florida Politics, using automated phone calls for 57% of responses and peer-to-peer text messages for 43%. Respondents were drawn at random from the state\u2019s registered voter file as of Aug. 11. Results were weighted by political party, race, age, gender and media market to match Florida\u2019s active voter population. Voters who said they do not plan to vote in the General Election were excluded. Of those who remained, 95% said they plan to vote for Governor and 5% were unsure. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review were performed by Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly are essentially tied in the race for Governor, according to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7380,445,118083,1813,160377,409,160359,160378,34220,160379,28912,160380,5187,7381,22306,160361,202,204,203,7382,199,201,200,160362,141643],"class_list":["post-403176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-2026-governors-race","tag-byron-donalds","tag-change-research","tag-david-jolly","tag-democratic-governors-association","tag-donald-trump","tag-emerson-college","tag-friends-of-byron-donalds","tag-general-election","tag-hart-research-associates","tag-james-fishback","tag-james-madison-institute-poll","tag-jay-collins","tag-paul-renner","tag-poll","tag-realclearpolling","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-pete-polls","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-steve-vancore","tag-university-of-north-florida-public-opinion-research-lab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403176","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=403176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}