HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — In Florida’s race for governor, the Democrat is a former Republican congressman, and the Republican would be the state’s first Black governor. That has left Democrats in an unfamiliar position: fighting to hold on to Black voters, one of their most reliable constituencies.

The Democrat, David Jolly, made that fight the clear focus of an interfaith event this week at the Koinonia Worship Center in Pembroke Park. Former President Bill Clinton and a lineup of Florida Democratic leaders joined him.

Speaking to a mostly Black crowd, Jolly invoked the state’s 2023 African American history standards, which said some enslaved people developed skills that benefited them. He also cited remarks his opponent, Rep. Byron Donalds, made in 2024 suggesting Black families were more intact during the Jim Crow era.

“When we are a state that actually suggested years ago that we might want to teach our kids the ‘good parts’ of slavery, or when my opponent suggests there were ‘good parts’ of Jim Crow — Folks, if the test at this moment is about our goodness, we are failing,” Jolly said with a tone that prompted Clinton to later refer to him as the “Reverend Jolly.”

During his own remarks, Clinton said, “The real story is who is unemployed and who is underemployed, and who can’t pay their bills. The black unemployment rate in the state is 8.6 percent.”

Fedrick Ingram, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers, was blunter. He said his remarks were aimed at Florida’s “African diaspora.”

“All your skin folk ain’t your kin folk,” he said.

Black Floridians make up only about 13% of the state’s active voters. But while Republicans have dominated Florida in recent cycles, recent polls show this race closer than many expected, likely to be decided on the margins. That gives Black voters an outsize role.

For Donalds, gains among Black voters could offset Republican slippage elsewhere. Some Latino voters have been alienated by President Donald Trump’s deportation push. Donalds has also shown weakness with rural voters: Most of the counties he lost in the August primary were in Florida’s largely rural, White panhandle.

For Jolly, the challenge is holding the party’s base. He has pointed to a recent poll showing him with 76% of Black voters, short of what the party’s last two nominees for governor won. In 2018, Andrew Gillum carried 90% of Black voters and came within less than a percentage point of defeating Ron DeSantis.

“There’s about 10% of Black voters who are currently undecided, and they might well decide the next governor of the state of Florida,” Jolly told reporters after the event with Clinton.

Both campaigns are now competing for those voters.

Donalds has long been the face of Republican efforts to bring Black voters into the party. As a Trump surrogate in 2024, he headlined several events aimed at Black men in heavily Democratic cities, including Detroit and Atlanta. His bet was that a message about economic opportunity and lower costs could overcome voters’ skepticism and mistrust of the GOP.

“It’s something I feel that Republicans should have been doing for a long time, because I think Black voters are more conservative than modern Democrats are anyway,” Donalds told MS NOW. “I think it’s important as Republicans to not just say, ‘Well, this group of people typically don’t vote our way. Let’s just focus on the votes we can get.’ I think you always have to find ways to expand your tent, expand the electorate.”

As a candidate for governor, Donalds has appeared alongside Black business and faith leaders and held town halls before largely Black audiences. Last month, at a town hall at Florida A&M University, a historically Black university, he was hammered over his support for changes to how race is taught in Florida’s public schools; the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; and Trump’s immigration crackdown.

He has also been buoyed by endorsements from several Black Democratic officials. Among them was a surprise endorsement from Gainesville City Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut. She faulted Jolly for not choosing a Black or Hispanic running mate and cited Donalds’ chance to make history.

“Representation is not window dressing. It is respect. It is recognition. It is power. And when that power is overlooked, we have every right to call it out,” Chesnut said in a statement on her decision. “I want to see a Black governor of Florida in my lifetime, and I will not apologize for saying so.”

Jerome Gayman, 65, of Fort Pierce, voiced a similar sentiment after attending a Donalds campaign event there.

“For a gentleman like me who has a son, who was able to see the rise of Barack Obama to being president, as the first [Black] president, to see Byron coming up as potentially the first black governor of Florida, it’s historic,” he said.

Gayman, who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, said he is not alone.

“You talk about the ‘silent minority,’ that’s who we are,” Gayman said. “There’s a lot of [Black voters] that will vote for Donald without coming public.”

Earlier this week, Jolly campaigned in Eatonville, which bills itself as the state’s first all-Black, self-governing municipality. While he was there, the town’s vice mayor, Angela Thomas, endorsed Donalds. Donalds cast the endorsement as especially meaningful.

“She decided to join a growing list of Democrats in this state who have looked at my campaign, the things that we’re working on, things that we stand for, and they’re deciding to cross party lines and support me,” Donalds said.

Still, winning over a significant share of Florida’s Black voters will be an uphill battle for Donalds. Despite the occasional defection, the turnout for Jolly’s event with Clinton showed how thoroughly Jolly has consolidated support among the state’s Black Democratic establishment. His challenge is making sure rank-and-file voters follow.

Jolly has accused Donalds of pursuing an “anti-Black agenda” and of refusing to confront persistent inequities in the state.

“The difference between Byron and I is I recognize that the economic disparity between Black and White America still exists today,” Jolly said. “The disparity in education outcomes in healthcare access still exists today. The attack on education disparately impacts Black and Brown communities … We’ve tried to build a coalition and a platform to actually address that.”

Democrats’ most potent argument, though, may be a simpler one: tying Donalds to Trump. Data suggest Black Americans have borne a disproportionate share of the economic strain since the president returned to office. Nationally, Black unemployment hit 7% in September, roughly double the rate for White workers, and Black median wealth fell by about a quarter from 2022 to 2025.

Democrats have also accused Donalds of trying to obscure that connection. After his campaign made Trump less visible on its website this month, Jolly said his Republican opponent was distancing himself from the president as part of a wider effort to court Black voters.

“His scrubbing of Donald Trump from his history is singularly about the undecided Black voter,” Jolly said at a Tallahassee campaign event.

Jolly has also said that having Angie Nixon, the Democratic Senate nominee, on the ticket “helps a lot” in turning out Black Floridians. Nixon, he said, is “energizing a base that is excited.”

Donalds is also working against history that suggests Republican voters have been unwilling to elect a Black state executive, as MS NOW political analyst Anthony Coley outlined.

“Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania in 2006; Daniel Cameron in Kentucky in 2023; Mark Robinson in North Carolina in 2024; and Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia in 2025. Each of those Black candidates was held up by the GOP as proof that the party is new and more diverse. Each of them lost,” Coley wrote.

But this is Florida, where no Democrat has been elected governor in more than three decades. Republicans outnumber Democrats in voter registration, and more Republicans turned out for the August primary. Donalds faces a steep climb with Black voters, but Jolly faces a steeper one against the state’s Republican tilt.

Both candidates are getting reinforcements as the race enters its final weeks. On Tuesday, Donalds released two ads featuring his mother aimed at Florida’s immigrant communities, and Trump is set to rally voters in the state Friday. Despite suggestions that he has been distancing himself from the president, Donalds told MS NOW he welcomes the visit.

“The president coming in, of course, that’s just going to be a boost of getting people excited about getting to the polls, and we love that,” Donalds said.

Jolly, meanwhile, has campaigned in recent weeks with prominent Black leaders. They include the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and former Rep. Al Lawson, whose majority-Black district was dismantled in Florida’s 2022 redistricting. On Tuesday, the Democratic Governors Association announced a $1 million investment in Jolly’s campaign. His campaign said Clinton has helped raise more than $3 million for him.

Jolly’s words and Donalds’ campaign stops point to the same bet: The race will be won at the margins.

“What I know we’re seeing in our camp, and I believe Byron’s camp is as well. I think there are two final fronts in this race. The first is the disaffected Republican,” Jolly said at the Tallahassee event. “But I would say the most important front that this entire race could come down to is that 10 percent of undecided black voters in Florida.”

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