A UNF poll puts Byron Donalds two points up on David Jolly. Does he win Florida's governor race on Nov 3?
71% of users predicted YES — the community got this one right. 7 predictions cast.
Byron Donalds, a Republican U.S. representative, won Florida's governor's race on November 3, 2026, defeating Democrat David Jolly by a margin close to the one-to-two points shown in a late University of North Florida poll. With nearly all precincts reporting, results put Donalds at roughly 50% of the vote to Jolly's 48.7%, a race decided by under two percentage points.
Donalds ran as a continuation of term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis's agenda and had Trump's backing, while Jolly, a former Republican congressman turned Democrat, campaigned on affordability and a break from current state leadership after 28 years of unbroken Republican control of the governor's mansion. Jolly phoned Donalds to concede once the race was called.
The result makes Donalds Florida's first Black governor and, by several accounts, the first elected Black Republican governor in U.S. history; he is expected to be sworn in during the first days of January 2027, succeeding DeSantis. The prediction market leaned correctly toward a Donalds win on this question, with 71% of recorded votes favoring that outcome, consistent with the final, if narrow, result.