Donalds and Jolly Make Their Final Stops: Two Bus Tours, One Day Left, and DeSantis Tells Republicans to Show Up
Tarpon Springs to Sarasota for Byron Donalds, Haines City to Broward for David Jolly — and on Monday night the Democrat's tour ends in South Florida while the governor who cannot run again makes the closing argument for his party.
Florida's governor's race spent its last full day the way Florida races do: on the road. Republican Byron Donalds opened Monday in Tarpon Springs on his 'Defending the Florida Dream' bus tour, headed to Polk County at noon alongside Sheriff Grady Judd and U.S. Senate candidate Ashley Moody, and was set to finish the afternoon in Sarasota, FOX 13 reported. Democrat David Jolly and his running mate Gwen Graham ran the mirror image on their 'Believe in Better' tour — Haines City in Polk County in the morning, east to Brevard County, and final rallies Monday night in Palm Beach and Broward counties, bringing the Democratic ticket's last hours to South Florida.
The closing messages were set over the weekend. Donalds told supporters, as published by FOX 13, that Florida voters are going to show up in a major way and that he is going to be the next governor, arguing the state should fight on policy — construction and insurance costs, roads, aquifers and farm land — rather than be turned over to the Democratic Party. Jolly, speaking in Miami on Sunday, framed the choice in values, saying, as published by FOX 13, that policies flow from values and that the first value is simple: the economy should work for everybody. Neither line is new; on the last day, repetition is the point.
Above both campaigns, the term-limited governor made his own closing argument. In a Republican Party of Florida video reported by The Floridian, Gov. Ron DeSantis urged Republicans to vote up and down the ballot and to vote yes on Amendment 3, the property-tax measure that would raise the homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 and needs 60 percent to pass. The history he is defending is long: Florida has not elected a Democratic governor since Lawton Chiles in 1994 and has had four consecutive Republican governors since 1999. A Donalds win would extend that run and make him the state's first Black governor in its 181-year history. Polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m.
