WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds announced that he's running to be the next governor of Florida in 2026, positioning himself as a possible successor to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who will reach his term limit for the office after serving eight years.
The announcement comes after Donalds, a Naples Republican, got a critical endorsement from President Donald Trump, which may clear the Republican primary pool given Trump's weight in Republican politics. If elected, Donalds would be the first Black governor of the state.
Here are three things to know about Donalds, who would be running in a state that's moved to favor Republicans in recent years:
Donalds is a staunch Trump ally
Donalds was one of Trump's earliest and longest standing supporters, having spoken at one of his rallies in September 2016.
The congressman was among 147 Republicans who voted to object to the election results from key swing states in 2020 and repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden was not the legitimate U.S. president.
Donalds is part of the conservative congressional Tea Party caucus and is highly regarded by Republican colleagues in his circle. The congressman was nominated for House speaker multiple times in 2023 when U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy won the post, and again when McCarthy was ousted.
Donalds was also on the short list of people to be Trump’s vice presidential running mate last year. Throughout the campaign, he acted as a Trump surrogate and traveled the country to support the president — even defying his own state’s governor, DeSantis, by endorsing Trump over him in the 2024 election.
Donalds' encounters with the law
Donalds grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and has described his hardworking single mother as a role model.
In 1996, he went to Florida and attended Florida A&M University, where he was arrested in 1997 for misdemeanor marijuana possession. The charge was ultimately dismissed. In 2000, he was charged with bribery by the state, an allegation he said stemmed from depositing a bad check when facing financial troubles. That record has since been expunged.
Despite these troubles, Donalds graduated from Florida State University in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in finance and marketing. In 2016, he was elected into the Florida House, where he championed school choice and criminal justice reform.
His wife, Erika Donalds, won a seat on the local school board in 2014 and founded the Optima Foundation in 2017 to support creating new schools and supporting charter schools. Earlier this year, Erika Donalds joined the America First Policy Institute to chair the Center for Education Opportunity as a champion of parental choice in schools.
He has had a rocky history with DeSantis
Donalds is entering the gubernatorial race among loud talk of Florida's first lady, Casey DeSantis, potentially running to succeed her husband.
She hasn’t officially announced her intentions, but Gov. DeSantis said earlier this week that he sees his wife as the best person to carry on his legacy in Florida.
Donalds dodged a question about Casey DeSantis in a Fox News interview, calling her husband a “great governor,” but saying it was time to focus on the future.
“Now, the job is to keep the best state in the country as the best state in the country,” Donalds said. "So that’s going to be the mission at hand.”
In the past, Ron DeSantis and Donalds were close. Donalds introduced the governor at his election night victory party in 2018 and praised him at the start of his term. Their relationship soured in 2023 when Donalds objected to statewide education standards DeSantis favored to teach middle school students that slaves learned skills that later benefitted them.
“The new African-American standards in FL are good, robust, & accurate,” Donalds wrote on Twitter at the time. “That being said, the attempt to feature the personal benefits of slavery is wrong & needs to be adjusted.”
In 2023, DeSantis accused Donalds of aligning with then-Vice President Kamala Harris and told Donalds to “stand up for your state.”
The relationship was further strained when Donalds joined other Florida Republicans in endorsing Trump for president in April 2023, opposing the governor's own presidential aspirations. Although he called DeSantis the “best governor in the country,” he said Trump is “the guy that can get the job done on Day One."
Stephany Matat, The Associated Press
