Florida · Governor

Who is running?

David Jolly (Democratic), Byron Donalds (Republican), Charles Burkett (Independent), Dean Ocean Abrams (Independent), Frank J. Russo (Independent), Jeffrey Peter Datto (Independent), Moliere Dimanche (Independent), Scott Eckhard Jewett (Libertarian). The margin below is David Jolly minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.

The race, in brief

Florida elects a governor on November 3, 2026, with Republican Ron DeSantis ineligible for a third consecutive term. The text notes Republicans have won every Florida governor's race since 1998; DeSantis was re-elected by 19.4% in 2022 after a 0.4-point win in 2018, and Donald Trump carried the state by 13% in 2024 and by 3.4% in 2020. The state profile records a Hispanic share of 0.3 and a median age of 42.6.

The Republican nominee is U.S. Representative Byron Donalds, running with former state senator Bryan Avila; he won the August 18 primary with 47.8% to Jay Collins's 25.2%. The Democratic nominee is David Jolly, a former Republican U.S. representative for Florida's 13th district, running with former U.S. representative Gwen Graham; he won his primary with 61.0%. Donalds declined all primary debates. Libertarian Scott Jewett and five independents, among them Surfside mayor Charles Burkett, are also on the ballot. Donalds reported $13,792,445 raised by August 13, 2026; the text gives no Democratic fundraising.

Cook, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, Inside Elections and Sabato's Crystal Ball list the race as R and RealClearPolitics as Tossup (all September 30, 2026); Silver Bulletin lists R (September 13, 2026). The aggregate polling average is Donalds 46.8%, Jolly 42.8%. Recent polls range from Change Research (D), September 25-27, with Jolly 48% to Donalds 47%, to Stetson University, September 14–21, with Donalds 51% to Jolly 39%.

A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.

The facts, each beside its sentence

Not in the source: The forecast rows in facts carry no basis field, so the dossier cannot say what the model's numbers stand on (for example, whether the statewide polls in the text are in it).; The ratings table gives only the party letter or 'Tossup'/'Flip'; no Lean/Likely/Safe strength is given.; No general-election fundraising is given for either nominee, and no fundraising at all for Jolly.; The endorsement sections are empty in the text beyond John Morgan's endorsement of Donalds.; facts.candidates lists each ticket twice (once as a governor/running-mate pair, once as the governor alone).

Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as eaa5627a36ea; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.

How it has voted for president

A shift of 12.0 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.

The state in numbers

ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.

Who is ahead, and by how much?

Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.

How likely is each to win?

Monte Carlo error is ±0.2 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.

How wide is the range?

Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -13.5 and +5.0 points. Election day: -15.5 to +7.0. The election-day interval is 4.0 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.

What is the uncertainty made of?

Total sd 7.17 points, made of race-specific polling error 48%, drift to election day 32%, correlated polling error 12%, latent opinion 9%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.

What evidence is this built on?

19 polls, most recent 2026-09-17. 30% verified against a primary source.

What changed since the last run?

Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is David Jolly ahead of Byron Donalds. Over 3 stored forecasts the central estimate moved -1.9 points. There were 1 specification change (marked on the axis) and no new polls arrived over this window — so every movement in this chart is a change to the model, not a change in the race.

Since 2026-09-24: margin -1.88 points, win probability -1.2 points, on +0 polls.

Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.

How has this model done before?

Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.

Where did every number come from?

Nowcast run 3a0d5057-ccbd-48f9-93b0-5a6c2633ce08 and election-day run 9b5d289c-74b3-42e6-aa68-4502e21500e9, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.