‘My rivals would all love to be in my position, and they're not’: Donalds’ Florida foes turn up the heat

The biggest brawl in Florida’s Republican gubernatorial primary isn’t over who’s likely to win — it’s over second place.

With seven months to go until primary voters head to the polls, GOP Rep. Byron Donalds is the clear front-runner. His position comes despite criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who remains popular among Republican voters as he prepares to leave office early next year.

That dynamic has turned the contest into a battle for second place. DeSantis has already signaled he doesn’t see Donalds as the heir to his conservative legacy, giving the rest of the field a powerful incentive: Win No. 2, and you might still win DeSantis.

If current trends continue, the contest may end up a romp, regardless of DeSantis’ pick. Surveys show Donalds’ challengers are polling only in the single digits, despite the entrance of high-profile rivals like Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, a former Green Beret, and former House Speaker Paul Renner, a Navy veteran with experience in Latin America. Hypothetical polls including Florida first lady Casey DeSantis entering the contest similarly show Donalds would crush the competition.

Even many DeSantis allies concede they think the race is Donalds’ to lose. Donalds has President Donald Trump’s endorsement and backing from key conservative commentators, and business and law enforcement leaders. He also has name ID and $45 million in the bank — with large checks continuing to roll in. And his team is made up of top operatives who helped orchestrate Trump’s 2024 White House comeback.

"Byron is clearly the front-runner. He's the president's guy," said Wilton Simpson, the state's Republican agriculture commissioner, whose name also has been floated as a possible candidate for governor. Simpson said "everybody has a right to run" but added — without naming any specific GOP candidate — that it has been "amateur hour" with some of the others in the race.

"I think you have a bunch of folks that want to run for office,” Simpson said. “To each his own. They want to run. They should be able to run. They go out and raise money and knock on doors and work hard. But clearly polling is indicating that it's going to be a very tough race for them. So long as they're OK with that, that's OK."

The key question is whether those candidates seeking to derail Donalds are able to inflict actual damage on his campaign. Increased scrutiny is likely coming over his finances, his wife’s charter school business operations and his stock trades. Some of his rivals have mentioned that Donalds was arrested when he was younger and questioned his friendship with scandal-plagued GOP Rep. Cory Mills. Donalds, for his part, has kept his campaign focused mostly on stressing his support from Trump instead of diving deep into Florida-specific issues.

Conservative commentator Jenna Ellis, who doesn’t support Donalds for governor, said she thought he’d “reached an overall high and has nowhere to go but down.”

“Beyond whether DeSantis ultimately engages, Donalds’ own record — and his prior history as a Democrat — will make it increasingly difficult for him to connect with Florida voters once they learn who he really is,” she said.

In recent weeks, GOP gubernatorial “War Room” social media accounts have ramped up their criticism of Donalds. The Renner campaign used a picture of Donalds’ face on a beer can to describe him as “Democrat lite: Weak on policies, full of himself!” and on a Burger King-looking menu board accusing him of “cheap talk” and being “soft on crime.”

State Sen. Jason Pizzo — a millionaire who made a splashy exit from the Democratic Party last year while leading the party in the state Senate — said he supports Collins and vowed to drop consideration of launching an independent bid for governor if Collins does well. Collins spokesperson Jessica Wright said the two had developed “mutual respect from spirited debate” when they served in the state Senate together.

And a key player in DeSantis’ orbit — top aide Christina Pushaw — recently came clean about how she was secretly advising long-shot GOP candidate James Fishback, an investor and online provocateur whose residency is under scrutiny and has made inflammatory remarks about Donalds’ race.

Meanwhile, the Donalds campaign doesn’t talk about his Republican rivals and has called for the party to unify behind his candidacy. Last week, Donalds focused his ire on the big-name Democratic challengers in the race — former Rep. David Jolly and Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings — and their stances regarding an ICE facility in Orlando.

When asked about his rivals and their criticisms, Donalds brushed it aside.

“My rivals would all love to be in my position, and they're not,” Donalds said during a brief availability with reporters in the state Capitol during a visit to Tallahassee this week. “Next question.”

Those in the race dispute that they’re aiming for second place and predicted the landscape would be far tighter in the coming months, noting that polls show half of voters are still undecided. (Those numbers decrease sharply when voters learn Donalds has Trump’s endorsement.)

Brett Doster, senior adviser to Renner’s campaign, said the goal was to get to a primary with two dominant GOP campaigns facing off. He noted that Renner has already made a slew of promises about what he’d do if elected, has raised $5.4 million and has a lengthy track record of effectively working with DeSantis to help him deliver on his conservative agenda. He downplayed Donalds’ record as that of a “Fox News cheerleader” who he said still has to make the case to voters that he can advance a conservative agenda.

“Paul has a record of leadership on this,” Doster said. “He’s most defined by the ‘Free State of Florida’ brand. He’s not a cheerleader — he’s a leader.” While all Republicans in the race have said they want to have the state continue in the same direction DeSantis started, he added, “There is going to be no candidate that reminds voters more of Ron DeSantis than Paul Renner.” If elected, he said, Renner would be “protecting a brand he helped create.”

Collins was initially seen as a potential heir to DeSantis, but he did not actually officially launch his bid for governor until earlier this month. Ahead of that launch an outside group called Florida Fighters spent more than $4 million on television ads touting Collins, but there’s been no television spending since early December. Collins has insisted the race remains “wide open,” and that Donalds “has not been part of the leadership that built Florida’s success.”

DeSantis initially dismissed Renner’s candidacy as “ill-advised” but appeared to warm to him in an interview with Ellis. One senior adviser in the DeSantis orbit, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said that at the time when the governor made the dismissive comment, it had been close to when he’d appointed Collins to be lieutenant governor, and DeSantis “had high hopes Jay would take that opportunity and run with it and earn his endorsement to be governor.”

The person said Renner’s latest strategy of rapid direct-to-camera videos and going after Donalds’ record — while offering a “positive contrast” to his own — was a positive and authentic development, adding that they thought Donalds was a “weak candidate at the top of the ticket who could revert the state to purple” and affect down-ballot races.

“If it’s going to evolve from a race for second into an actual competitive primary by August, you need a candidate who has a track record that is credible and that presents a positive contrast to Byron Donalds,” the person said.

There’s also the hypothetical scenario, considering the primary is still months away, that someone could get into the race with tens of millions of dollars behind them. That self-funding would mirror now-Sen. Rick Scott’s path in his first successful race for governor in 2010.

But one GOP consultant and donor who supports the front-runner said no one who said Donalds could be beaten was being realistic given the current realities of the race. The person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, added that others may eventually have to do a “strategic withdrawal” and offer help to Donalds rather than take the “suicide mission” of being badly blown out on Election Day.

“It becomes insurmountable at some point,” the person said. “I think the only person that can defeat Byron is Byron. So as long as he doesn’t make any major mistakes, I just think it’s going to be difficult for him to lose.”

At least three advisers close to DeSantis, granted anonymity to relay internal dynamics, said it was possible the governor may not endorse at all. The governor has also left that option open, saying he was looking for someone “bold” and “willing to fight when it’s not easy.”

“I have gotten involved in some primaries,” he recently told independent journalist Julio Rosas. “But it’s usually when there’s a candidate that’s really speaking my language, that I’m really excited to get behind.”

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, when asked for his view on the governor’s race and those challenging Donalds, quipped: “Yikes. Maybe we should just change the constitution and let DeSantis run again.”