DeSantis Neutral as Florida GOP Primary Nears; Donalds Leads

Byron Donalds is the favorite. The president said so. The money says so. The polls say so. But Florida’s Republican gubernatorial primary isn’t over yet—and with 12 days until the Aug. 18 ballot, the GOP field is still throwing elbows.

The Numbers Put Donalds In Another Hemisphere

Donalds has never trailed in this race since Trump endorsed him in February 2025, days before the Naples congressman announced. According to WLRN’s average of the past five polls, he sits at 43 percent. James Fishback—the 31-year-old investment CEO fighting a residency challenge—is at 12.1. Lt. Gov. Jay Collins is at 11.5. The rest of the field barely registers.

A fresh James Madison Institute survey, conducted by Targoz Market Research July 20-26 among 1,400 registered Florida voters, shows Donalds at 49 percent among Republican likely voters. Collins trails at 18. Renner gets 8. Fishback gets 4. That’s a 31-point lead, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.62 points.

The money matches the math. Donalds has raised more than $100 million, per WLRN, including a recent $10 million transfer from billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin. His campaign had already announced more than $90 million raised by mid-July.

DeSantis Isn’t Endorsing Anyone. His Words Still Matter.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited, with his final day in office Jan. 5, 2027. He has said he won’t endorse in the GOP primary. But on Thursday, he told reporters something that made Paul Renner’s team smile: Renner “would make a good governor.” The comment, reported by the Tampa Bay Times, came during a news conference. DeSantis still hasn’t backed anyone.

DeSantis appointed Collins lieutenant governor in August 2025. That looked like a golden ticket. It wasn’t. The governor has never endorsed Collins. And when Renner jumped into the primary last September, DeSantis’ only public reaction was: “It was an ill-advised decision.” He also announced last year he would not back Donalds. First Lady Casey DeSantis polled relatively well against Donalds in 2025 surveys, but she never pulled the trigger. So Florida’s most popular Republican is sitting this one out—while shaping it with one-liners.

Collins vs. Fishback: The Brutal Battle For Second Place

Jay Collins insists this is still a two-man race. “This is a two-person race in the primary. It is between Byron Donalds and myself,” he said on a Thursday campaign call, per WPTV. But the numbers say otherwise. A Tyson Group survey put Donalds at 48, Collins at 9, Fishback at 8, Renner at 4. That’s not a two-person race. That’s a one-person race and a scrum.

Collins has spent months attacking Donalds—including a 13-page document alleging “liabilities” and referencing the congressman’s acknowledged arrest record. His supporters even trotted out an AI-created ad depicting a Donalds administration dominated by data centers and marijuana dispensaries. On the other flank, Collins tried to get Fishback kicked off the ballot over the state’s seven-year residency requirement. A two-day hearing began July 21 in Tallahassee. The net result, per WLRN: Fishback remains eligible. But because ballots are already printed, any ruling against him would tell election officials not to count his votes. It’s a knife on a string.

The GOP establishment has also moved against Fishback. The Front Line, a Republican group aligned with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, is spending $400,000 on a campaign targeting Fishback over alleged antisemitic remarks—including an AI-generated ad showing Fishback as a talking fish spewing racist comments. Fishback denies the charge. The Republican Party of Florida rescinded his invitation to its summer convention, citing those accusations plus what they called his “baseless attacks about Florida GOP officials.” Fishback’s response: “We are the only campaign who has directly been targeted.”

There is one pocket where the underdog actually moves people: young white men. WLRN reports that a certain part of that cohort seems enamored of the investment firm CEO. When Donalds spoke at a Tampa Bay Young Republicans meeting last week, Spectrum News reported “it wasn’t entirely a friendly crowd.” At the same club in December, audience members told The Phoenix they supported Fishback—and wished Trump hadn’t endorsed Donalds. It’s a sliver of the electorate, not a wave. But it tells you the MAGA coalition has cracks, and Fishback is hammering at them.

Renner Is The Policy Guy In A Brawl

Paul Renner, former Florida House speaker, is running on record and plans. He helped steer a 2023 legislative session that passed an immigration crackdown, a six-week abortion ban, union-busting measures, and new restrictions on groups registering voters. That’s an agenda that plays to the GOP base. His current pitch includes a detailed plan to reduce homestead property taxes—with specifics on how to backfill the lost revenue for local governments, something critics say DeSantis and the GOP-dominated Legislature failed to do with Amendment 3.

But his path was always uphill. He waited until September 2025 to launch, and DeSantis called it “ill-advised.” That stung, because Renner had been one of the governor’s closest legislative allies. As speaker in 2023, he worked with Senate President Kathleen Passidomo to drive the session that gave DeSantis the platform for a presidential bid—and both traveled to freezing Iowa that January to campaign for him ahead of the caucuses. Still, the governor gave him something this week. “He would make a good governor,” DeSantis said. That’s not an endorsement, but in an echo chamber, it’s the next best thing.

Debate Drama: The Party Dares To Say No To Voters

The Florida GOP canceled a gubernatorial debate during its “Sunshine State Showdown” event. The party’s qualifying benchmarks: 10 percent in an internal poll, $10 million raised, and 10,000 unique donors. Only Donalds could clear all three. Renner called it “tipping the scales.” Donalds’ communications director Gates McGavick fired back: “there’s no participation trophies in politics.”

Then DeSantis stuck his oar in. On social media, per Florida’s Voice, the governor said the state party “has no authority to refuse debates.” He added: “Having a debate on Fox News (or other widely distributed channels) would be a win for the voters.” DeSantis was responding to Renner’s request that Fox News and Newsmax bypass state party restrictions. Neither network has formally responded. The state party hasn’t blinked.

Democrats Actually Have A Candidate. Is He Actually A Threat?

The Democratic primary was supposed to be a coronation for Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings. Instead, Demings dropped out two months ago because of poor health. That effectively handed the nomination to David Jolly—a former Republican U.S. congressman. He’s now running as a Democrat. Five other Democrats remain: North Miami state Rep. Dotie Joseph, Dayna Marie Foster, Evelyn Castillo-Bach, Thomas Fernandez, and Stephann Norman. None of them registers above the noise. According to the James Madison Institute survey, Jolly leads the Democratic field with 47 percent among likely voters. Dayna Marie Foster is second at 4 percent.

Jolly has real crossover appeal in the polls. A June Change Research survey for Freedom Project USA showed Jolly actually beating Donalds—47 to 42 percent among registered voters, and 49 to 43 among likely voters, when voters were shown candidate descriptions. That’s the kind of number that keeps Republican strategists up at night. But the same JMI survey shows Donalds ahead of Jolly 45-38 among likely voters in a head-to-head. Collins also beats Jolly 44-39. In other words: Jolly has a shot, but only if the GOP game shifts.

Jolly also has baggage. Federal prosecutors allege that Clearwater financier Leo Govoni and accountant John Witeck stole more than $100 million from a nonprofit that managed trust funds for people with disabilities between 2009 and 2025. Jolly previously worked as a VP at Boston Finance Group, a Govoni-controlled company. Jolly’s answer: “I’m an open book. Because when you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.”

Here’s What The Next Florida Governor Actually Has To Do

Donalds has made clear he’s running to “enact the Trump agenda.” On property taxes, he’s promised that if voters reject Amendment 3 in November, he’ll revive it through the state’s Taxation and Budget Reform Commission. On housing, he wants to cut permitting times. On data centers—more than 20 local governments across Florida have voted to reject major data centers in recent years—he’s filed legislation to make developers, not taxpayers, absorb costs. Those are the talking points. The reality is that Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 1994. The Aug. 18 primary will decide the Republican who gets to keep that streak, or the Democrat who breaks it.

Here’s the tension underneath all of it: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are backing different futures for the Florida GOP, and this primary is the first real test of which one wins. Trump endorsed Donalds before he even announced—the president’s seal of approval is the single biggest reason Donalds has led from day one. DeSantis, the man Trump helped make governor in 2018, has pointedly refused to bless anyone, and his repeated jabs at the party’s debate rules read like a rebuke of the front-runner’s coronation. WLRN notes Donalds’ “enact the Trump agenda” line helps him in the primary but could be a problem in November, with the president under water in public approval rankings in the Sunshine State. Whoever survives Aug. 18 inherits that math.

Twelve names are on the GOP primary ballot, per Ballotpedia, but only a few matter: Donalds, Collins, Fishback, Renner. The president has picked his horse. The governor has not. On Aug. 18, the voters get the final word—and both sides know it.

By Jessica Ali, Staff Writer

This article was produced with AI-assisted research and editorial support. Sources: WLRN, Tampa Bay Times, WPTV, Florida's Voice, James Madison Institute.