Florida Democrats are confident that former Rep. David Jolly, the state’s Democratic nominee for governor, will handily win the Jewish vote over Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), his Republican opponent — and believe Jolly is running a competitive race that could deliver a surprise victory.

But Jolly’s campaign has been complicated by the presence of Angie Nixon, the Democratic candidate for Senate, on the same ticket — a dynamic that Donalds has been quick to elevate — as well as the Sunshine State’s conservative trend.

“Republicans have obvious structural advantages in Florida now, not the least of which is a one-and-a-half-million-person voter registration advantage,” former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) told Jewish Insider. “If this was a normal year, and voters were relatively happy, or at least only moderately unhappy with the direction of the country, the Republican candidate would undoubtedly win with a substantial margin, but that’s not the case.”

Jolly, a Republican-turned-Democrat, has a pro-Israel record from his time in Congress and has emphasized his support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship on the trail. Donalds, meanwhile, is a close ally of President Donald Trump and holds a similarly pro-Israel record.

Jewish voters in Florida have swung to the right in recent elections, with 44% of Florida Jews voting for President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, according to the VoteCast exit poll conducted for the Associated Press and Fox News. But there are also signs that Jewish voters in key swing districts, such as those in the South Florida district of Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), are rewarding pro-Israel Democrats who have spoken out against the elements of the left that are hostile toward the Jewish state. 

“I think we’re going to see David hit that 75% marker,” Florida state Sen. Tina Polsky, a Jewish co-chair of Jolly’s campaign, said. “David is acting as an incredible unifier of the Jewish community by leaning into his feelings about combating antisemitism, his support for Israel and his love of the Jewish community.”

Democrats’ confidence does not extend to Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who shocked the party with her defeat of Alex Vindman, a more moderate, Jewish challenger, in the Democratic primary. 

While polls show the gubernatorial race as highly competitive, Nixon continues to trail Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL), who was tapped to fill Marco Rubio’s seat in 2025 after he was confirmed as secretary of state and is running to serve out the remaining two years of the term. 

Nixon, a veteran community organizer in the Jacksonville area, holds staunchly anti-Israel views and opposes providing offensive military aid to the Jewish state. During the Democratic primary against Vindman, Nixon said she would have voted to cut off military aid to Israel, a stance that she has maintained as the general election candidate.

Two days after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Nixon posted a statement on X that condemned “unjust killings” without blaming Hamas and mentioned lives being “lost on both sides.” Nixon deleted the post within hours, though she left up several replies where she defended the “both sides” remark. 

From late 2024 through early 2025, she appeared at several fundraising events in Florida hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, during which she referred to those who opposed her resolution as her “permanent enemies.”

Her presence on the Democratic ticket has posed a challenge for Jolly, who has been campaigning as a moderate. Jolly is a supporter of Nixon’s campaign but acknowledges that they diverge on Israel. 

“We’re just honest about our differences,” Jolly told JI in an interview last week. “The politics have just shifted so quickly, and so, as we navigate this, I always return to the baseline values that I hold. I consider myself an ally of Israel, I have been throughout my career in politics. I still think on the international scene the two-state solution is the right answer. I think the truce was broken on Oct. 7. It launched a war that went on too long, it should have been brought to a close. I think the West failed all people in that ensuing time.”

Jolly added that he believes Trump “has been completely manipulated by” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

“I think it’s time for Netanyahu to go, and I think our alliance with Israel will be strengthened when Netanyahu’s gone, but we’re currently living through a very fragile chapter in that relationship, and you’re seeing those politics play out in both the Republican and Democratic Party,” he said. 

Operatives on both sides of the aisle say Nixon’s anti-Israel positions, while hurting her own prospects in the Jewish community, have not appeared to diminish Jolly’s standing. 

“David Jolly being pro-Israel, even in a governor’s race, does give him an opening with those voters, especially since he’s trying really hard to separate himself from Angie Nixon,” a Republican operative connected to Donalds’ campaign said.

But Florida Republicans still believe that the state’s sharp conservative turn in the last decade gives them a decided advantage, despite the rough national environment for the GOP. Trump carried the Sunshine State by 13 points in 2024, and outside Democratic groups haven’t spent nearly as aggressively in Florida as in other red states that they’re contesting. 

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told JI that those trends are compounded by Jewish voters being alienated by what he called the Democratic Party’s embrace of the DSA.

“Jewish voters, it seems like every two years a higher and higher percentage of them vote for Republicans, because what they’ve learned is Democrats are not supportive of Israel. They’re not fighting antisemitism. Matter of fact, some of them are antisemitic, like [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani, [Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul] El-Sayed, people like that,” Scott said. “They don’t want that in our state, so I think Byron’s going to do really well. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t.”

In an interview with JI last week, Donalds attributed Jolly’s competitive polling numbers to voters’ lack of familiarity with him or his record, and acknowledged that the current state of the U.S. economy had created a difficult environment for Republicans. 

“People don’t want to see high gas prices. I understand that. I don’t want to pay high gas prices either, so I completely understand where people are coming from,” Donalds said. “We’re in a position where for the first time in eight years, we’re electing a new governor. I think that there are a lot of voters who are now saying, ‘OK, well, I know [Gov.] Ron DeSantis. I’m still trying to learn Byron Donalds.’”

Donalds said that while he was taking “nothing for granted,” his campaign’s internal polling shows that “the race is starting to look more like a Florida race.” 

“Is it going to be a 19-point spread like it was four years ago? I don’t think so, and nobody thinks that, but I think we’ll end up doing quite well on election night,” Donalds told JI.

Republicans in the state noted that Donalds has made Jewish outreach a priority in the campaign, and predicted that voters would take note of his decision to hold firm on his support for Israel and continue engaging the Jewish community. They also point to his equanimity in dealing with racist and antisemitic attacks from James Fishback, one of his primary opponents. 

“This primary season, unfortunately, showed that there is deep antisemitism on both sides of the aisle. The things James Fishback said were despicable. Byron fought back against that, as did Rick Scott and many other Republicans,” Jackie Zeckman, one of Scott’s longest-serving advisors, said. “In the primary, Byron sat down with Jewish leaders. He made the Jewish community a priority not just because of his record, but because he was running against someone who has a horrible record on these issues and said things that were incredibly racist and antisemitic.”

Zeckman, who serves on the board overseeing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, argued that Donalds’ criticism of Fishback places Donalds in contrast with Jolly, who has declined to condemn Nixon despite distancing himself from some of her views. 

“Byron Donalds has condemned James Fishback. Has David Jolly condemned anything Angie Nixon has said? No, he hasn’t condemned her or said that anything she has said or done as a candidate is wrong,” Zeckman said. “Has he condemned Hasan Piker for saying that my boss, Rick Scott, should be murdered? I don’t think so. If he has, I haven’t seen it.”

Across the political spectrum, Jewish and pro-Israel operatives in Florida told JI that the top priority for Jewish voters was addressing security concerns amid rising antisemitism. In practical terms, that means the state offering resources to ensure security needs are met at Jewish institutions such as synagogues, Jewish day schools and Jewish community centers. 

“The Jewish community is looking very closely at this race. What I’m hearing is that they are skewing very much towards Byron Donalds, and that’s mainly because they are looking northwards. They’re looking at Zohran Mamdani. They’re looking at [New York Gov.] Kathy Hochul,” Rob Garson, Trump’s personal lawyer and another USHMM board member who is supporting Donalds, told JI. “They are unhappy with the hounding of the Jewish community and they don’t want that to happen here. The reason why they’ve moved to the state of Florida is in order to get away from socialist tendencies, woke tendencies.”

Both of the state’s gubernatorial candidates told JI that they heard the same message from Jewish Floridians. 

“Once you get past affordability, it’s wanting to be safe,” Donalds said of Jewish voters. “People want to know that Florida’s going to continue to be a law and order state, a state where antisemitism is not allowed, and that it’s held accountable. We are going to continue to be that state where we don’t tolerate bigotry or antisemitism.”

“This is an era where the rise of antisemitism is real and is audibly felt in communities that too often fear for their safety and feel as though speech in the public arena drifts into outright hostility or threats of harm,” Jolly told JI, adding that the Jewish community was seeking “as governor, a voice willing to condemn it and fund security programs that protect synagogues.”

Donalds and Jolly both say they’ll continue providing state resources to support the Jewish community’s security needs.