Inside Byron Donalds’ Campaign To Court Black Voters In Florida

MIAMI — When Donald Trump needed a conservative to reach out to Black voters in 2024, he turned to Rep. Byron Donalds, the young Black Florida Republican popular with the MAGA base.

Now, Donalds is working to win over the traditionally Democratic voting bloc for himself as he seeks to become Florida’s first Black governor.

Donalds has recently sharpened his campaign’s focus on courting Black voters, but it won’t be easy. He faces plenty of skepticism from Black communities and heavy criticism from Democratic rival David Jolly, who is white and accused Donalds of pitching an “anti-Black agenda.” But Donalds’ campaign is determined to make a push to win over Black voters, a constituency that could prove key in November.

“We've done a lot of work in Broward County and in North Miami,” Donalds said during an interview in Miami Beach in late September, referring to regions with substantial Black populations. “We've done that work in Jacksonville very quietly. Most people didn't even know we were doing it. We've been consistent on this because I want the votes of everybody in Florida.”

Donalds’ outreach comes as issues of race have been thrust to the forefront of the political discourse, including in conservative-leaning Florida. Trump made major inroads nationwide with Black voters during the 2024 election, and Donalds is trying to capitalize on that while fending off fringe elements of his own party. It also comes as Florida, under Gov. Ron DeSantis, has transformed how race is taught in schools — parts of which Donalds publicly rejected.

Last weekend, Donalds’ schedule was packed with events alongside Black business and civic leaders. Two Black elected Democrats are crossing party lines to back him: Gainesville Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut and Haines City Commissioner Anne Huffman. In the closing weeks of the election, the campaign plans to run ads in outlets with large Black audiences.

The flurry of outreach comes after a recent event Donalds held in Little Haiti and as his mother interviewed with Caribbean National Weekly to discuss the impact his Jamaican and Panamanian heritage had on his life. His campaign recently sent out an email drawing attention to ways Donalds has supported historically Black colleges and universities, including requesting an oversight hearing on the federal responses to threats of violence on campuses. And on Monday, more than two dozen Black leaders — including Republican state lawmakers and sheriffs — joined a coalition supporting him.

But many Democratic Black leaders in Florida criticize Donalds’ record and his closeness to Trump, who endorsed him in early 2025 before he made his campaign for governor official. They point to how he opposed federal legislation that would have strengthened protections against racial discrimination in voting.

At campaign events, voters have pressed Donalds over the expiration of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Donalds defended Trump’s decision to let the protections expire while saying he was working with Haiti’s transitional government to help stabilize the country, which is wracked by gang violence. Roughly 158,000 TPS holders from Haiti live in Florida, and nearly 570,000 Floridians are of Haitian descent.

“While the possibility of Florida electing its first Black governor is historically significant, representation has to mean more than pigmentation,” said Democratic state Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis of Orlando, a member of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus. “Black voters are going to look at what you have actually said, what you have actually done, and whether your record advances or undermines the progress our community fought so hard to achieve. For me, Byron Donalds’ record has too often made him a barrier to that progress, not a bridge.”

Critics also frequently raise comments he made about the segregated Jim Crow era, in which he said Black families were together and voted in a conservative way. Donalds has said critics twisted his words, that he was only referring to a period in time to make the argument that the later advent of social policies weakened Black families.

Black voters made up 11.4% of Florida’s electorate in the 2024 cycle. But their participation could extend a few points higher, as it did when former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is Black, was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2018. That’s because the candidate running for U.S. Senate, state Rep. Angie Nixon, is Black and has a background in civil and union rights. She showed during her primary that she could energize Black voters.

A person on the Donalds’ campaign, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they’re considering the fact that some voters might split for Nixon and Donalds because “inherently as a culture we always want to see each other succeed.”

Black voters in Florida also swung more towards Trump in 2024, similar to the president’s gains with such voters nationally. While the majority of the state’s Black voters still choose Democrats, Trump increased his share of Florida’s Black vote from 10% in 2020 to 15% in 2024, according to exit polling from CNN and The New York Times.

During his primary, Donalds was more cautious about discussing race, telling CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede in March he wasn’t focused on it. A couple days before the primary, when pressed about it by POLITICO, he opened up about building close relationships in the state Legislature with Black lawmakers who were Democrats, given their shared struggles.

“Even though we disagreed on certain policies, the way we grew up was the same,” he said. “It was hard. Nothing was given to us. We had to earn it.”

He also said his campaign did see an opportunity to reach out to Black voters, accusing Democrats of having veered too far left for more traditional Black families who identify as “commonsense conservative Democrats.” Donalds, who even Democrats widely concede is a natural retail politician, made a similar argument as a surrogate for Trump, when he traveled to cities to address Black voters.

The campaign’s groundwork with Black voters isn’t as new as it appears. Donalds’ campaign in May hired Janiyah Thomas, who directed Black voter outreach for the Trump campaign. Donalds also has for months been quietly meeting with Black voters in barber shops and cigar bars, and in the coming weeks he’ll be visiting Black churches to talk about how he became a Christian.

His campaign asserted that, at events, Black women, who are the most loyal to the Democratic Party, tend to find his personal story of being raised by a single mom relatable — in contrast to during the Trump campaign’s sharper focus on men.

But Donalds faces a balancing act. Results from the Aug. 18 primary show that while he came in far ahead of his Republican challengers, he also lost in overwhelmingly white and rural counties. Black candidates also historically face trouble making inroads among South Florida’s Cuban voters, a point seemingly not lost on Donalds, who selected former state Sen. Brian Ávila, a Cuban American, as his running mate.

Donalds’ candidacy comes as Florida has chipped away at Black representation and civic participation under DeSantis, who dismantled districts that had elected Black lawmakers and signed laws banning diversity, equity and inclusion policies in workplaces, schools and local governments. His administration has also faced backlash from Black lawmakers over his election police unit and anti-riot laws, even as the measures became part of DeSantis’ broader appeals to GOP voters.

DeSantis supports Donalds now, and Donalds helped with his 2018 election by playing Gillum during debate prep. But the topic of race was a source of tension between them in 2023, when members of DeSantis’ staff criticized Donalds after he argued that the state’s African American history education standards’ “attempt to feature the personal benefits of slavery is wrong and needs to be adjusted.”

Sean Shaw, a Black Democrat who ran for state attorney general in 2018, warned that Donalds’ outreach to Black voters might backfire with other parts of the electorate. Shaw, a former legislator who overlapped with Donalds, called him “charming” and likeable but isn’t supporting him because of his record and his closeness to Trump and DeSantis.

“I think they have got to figure out how much he wants to focus on race and how much he wants to go after the Black vote,” he said, pointing to the counties Donalds lost. “There are certain counties where it was clear what was going on there.”

But state Sen. Corey Simon, a Black Republican who represents 13 North Florida counties, pushed back on the assertion that Donalds fared poorly in some rural counties during the primary because of race. He said that other candidates appealed to voters concerned about growth changing rural areas.

“I have no doubt those areas are going to go red in the upcoming election,” said Simon, who noted that in some counties he received a higher percentage of votes than Trump.

Jolly has faced his own criticism from Black voters, especially after he picked former Rep. Gwen Graham — the daughter of the late Sen. and Gov. Bob Graham, who is white — to be his running mate. In September during a livestream, Chestnut, one of the Democrats bucking her party to vote for Donalds, said she called Jolly the day after his announcement to say: “You had the opportunity to select a Black woman, a Black man, a Hispanic man, Hispanic woman and you chose to go back, to go backwards, not forward. Going with a Black candidate or Hispanic candidate would have done much to pull the state together.”

The decision by Chestnut, who once represented Democratic-leaning Gainesville in the Florida Legislature, sent ripples through the state. She had previously backed Jolly and faced outcry from fellow Democrats on social media for getting behind Donalds.

Jolly conceded to POLITICO last month that, despite momentum his own race appears to be showing in forecast models, he was concerned about Donalds making inroads with the Black community, given the vast resources the Donalds campaign has in its $120 million war chest — but also because “his lived experience is more unique than mine in that community.”

“If there's a voter in Florida that wants to reach for history to elect the first Black governor, I'm not going to step in their way,” he said. “I get it.” But he additionally criticized Donalds for praising Trump’s economy and for his political committee accepting campaign donations from companies that run private prisons.

State Sen. Shev Jones, who’s among more than 20 Black leaders helping to shape policy and act as a surrogate for Jolly, said voters where he lives in Miami Gardens, the largest majority-Black city in Florida, aren’t asking him many questions about Donalds, but instead are focused on the cost of living.

“David's coming with a plan, and that's what I believe the Black community is looking for,” Jones said.

Jolly has made overtures to Black voters, including by selecting prominent Florida attorney Sean Pittman as transition chair, a longtime Democratic power broker who advised Gillum. He seeks regular input from well-known Black leaders on economic policy and pledged to create a civil rights office in the governor’s office if elected.

During a campaign office opening on Sept. 23 in Miami Gardens, Jolly accused Donalds of having an “anti-Black agenda.”

Donalds panned the comments in an interview as the “stupidest argument I've ever heard in my life” and accused Jolly of using “the same old playbook of the Democratic left” of bringing race into policy discussions. He argued his agenda about helping students master education skills, building workforce development and lowering the cost of property insurance affected all voters.

“You know why he has to say that?” Donalds asked. “He has to say that because he knows he's losing Black voters to me.”

Donalds does have prominent Black allies — four Republican state lawmakers are on his Black coalition team, including Simon. Another member of the coalition is GOP Duval County Sheriff T.K. Waters, who said “a lot more Black voters agree with Rep. Donalds — or soon-to-be Gov. Donalds — than most people know” but face backlash. Waters contended Black men especially “are more conservative than people know” and that Black voters care about jobs, affordability and public safety.

“I think for the longest time, everyone's told that you have to think a certain way, you have to believe in certain ways,” he said. “In our community, there's a lot of people in the Black community that are rejecting that idea."

But it’s clear from campaign events that Donalds is still working to reach skeptical voters. During a recent town hall at Florida A&M University, he faced pointed questions from students at the historic Black university over his allegiance to the GOP. Donalds, who attended the school for three years before transferring to nearby Florida State University, pushed back by pressing students about why they supported a party he insisted had not kept its promises to Black people.

“Stop moving like a monolith,” Donalds said. “You’ve been faithful to that party. Have they been faithful to you? … I would ask Black people in Florida, Black people in America: Have they delivered?”

Kimberly Leonard reported from Miami, and Gary Fineout reported from Tallahassee, Fla.