FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds won the Republican nomination for Florida governor and former Rep. David Jolly won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, setting the stage for a November contest to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis.
State Rep. Angie Nixon won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, defeating Alex Vindman. She will face Sen. Ashley Moody, who won the Republican nomination. They are competing in a special election
to finish the final two years of Marco Rubio’s term, who became secretary of state.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A Republican attempting to become Florida's first Black governor faces a crowded field Tuesday while Democrats wage primary battles for a reduced pool of left-leaning seats under redrawn congressional maps.
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds is banking on President Donald Trump ’s endorsement in hopes of securing the Republican nomination and advance to the fall election. His opponents include Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and political newcomer James Fishback.
Democrats' leading candidate for governor is David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who switched parties last year.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading conservative figure who has clashed and collaborated with Trump over the years, is barred from running for a third consecutive term.
The first polls closed at 7 p.m. in Tuesday's primaries, which are giving final form to a November ballot whose races will test Trump’s grip on his adopted state and Democrats' ability to resurrect Florida as a national political battleground. Florida has moved notably to the right since Trump won his first election in 2016, though Democrats hope to regain ground from his slumping popularity ratings.
Two Democrats are battling for nomination in a U.S. Senate special election to complete Marco Rubio’s term after he became Trump's secretary of state last year. Progressive state lawmake r Angie Nixon faced retired Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, a former National Security Council official who testified in Trump's first impeachment case in 2019.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ashley Moody, the DeSantis appointee currently holding the seat, appears in a strong position as she seeks the Republican nomination with Trump's endorsement for the term's final two years.
For Congress, Tuesday's biggest fight involved longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who defeated former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and others in a redrawn south Florida district.
Wasserman Schultz, who is white, urged voters in the new, plurality Black district to grant her a 12th term. Cherfilus-McCormick had sought a comeback after resigning earlier this year under a pending federal indictment and threat of House ethics sanctions.
There have been three elected Black governors in U.S. history. Yet the 47-year-old Donalds is more likely to tout his conservative credentials than the possibility of joining that select group.
He promises to push tax cuts, overhaul Florida's insurance regulations to lower consumer costs and seek greater price transparency from healthcare providers.
“The people of Florida want to make sure that the Florida dream is alive and well into the future,” he said recently. “Affordability is a problem for all Floridians. It doesn't matter what your politics are. It doesn't matter what the color of your skin is.”
Trump has had an inconsistent record on picks for governor in primaries this year, and a strong showing by Donalds would leave him, and Republicans in general, in a more commanding position for November. Though DeSantis coasted to reelection in 2022, he squeaked into office in 2018 by little more of 32,000 ballots out of 8.1 million cast.
Republican voter Timothy Clawser in Port St. Lucie said that while he generally supports Trump as president, he did not support Donalds for governor, calling him “untested.”
“I know Trump carries a lot of weight and throws his endorsement behind different candidates,” Clawser said. “I’m looking more for your record and what you are doing. I think there are a better choices than Byron Donalds."
Meanwhile, Jolly is hoping ultimately to prove a party-switching former Republican can actually carry the Democratic banner in a state where that's failed before. Democrats nominated former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist in 2022 only to see him lose by nearly 20 percentage points to DeSantis.
Rich Chamberlin, a retiree in Port St. Lucie, said he supported Jolly in Tuesday's primary, spurred on by attack ads against him.
“I saw anti-Jolly ads. I said ‘Ok, if they are against him, then I must be for him,'" Chamberlin said, adding he didn't mind Jolly used to be a Republican.
Moody, a former state attorney general tapped for Rubio's seat in 2025, is in a strong position seeking the GOP nomination. DeSantis, when he appointed her, praised her as a law-and-order prosecutor ready to help Trump “shut the border,” tame inflation, and overhaul a federal bureaucracy “run amok.”
Democrats face a familiar theme of 2026 primaries, with the progressive Nixon confronting Vindman from the party's center-left establishment. Vindman's testimony in 2019 was notable in the Democrat-led House impeachment case that led to Trump's acquittal in the Republican-led Senate. Trump ousted Vindman afterward.
Floridians haven’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2012.
Serving in Congress since 2005 , she entered a new district — thanks to DeSantis' successful push for new congressional maps intended to boost Trump's midterm election prospects.
It’s not the first time Wasserman Schultz has had to sway new voters after Republicans tinkered with boundaries. But this time she was the only white candidate in a plurality Black district — the redrawn Florida 20th, concentrated in the most diverse parts of South Florida's Broward County. It's the most Democratic House district in Florida, meaning she will be a prohibitive favorite in November.
Her four Black primary opponents — including Cherfilus-McCormick — had argued that the district requires a Black representative. Wasserman Schultz disagreed.
“Representation matters and lived experience matters. But experience and making sure that you have someone who has the seniority and the seasoning to be able to deliver for a district, it matters as well,” she said recently.
Cherfilus-McCormick had sought to return to Congress despite a pending federal indictment that accuses her of stealing $5 million in federal disaster aid. She has plead not guilty and disputed alleged violations of House rules.
DeSantis and other Republicans have bailed on Republican Rep. Cory Mills as he seeks a third term in Florida's 7th Congressional District at the same time he's denying domestic violence allegations. He faces three primary opponents.
“I have not endorsed Cory Mills, and I do not support Cory Mills,” DeSantis said recently in Mills' district.
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Associated Press reporters Gisela Salomon in Miami and David Fischer in Port St. Lucie, Florida, contributed.
