Byron Donalds is trying to win over Black voters in Florida, and he knows the numbers are not on his side. The Republican nominee for governor is running in a state where Black voters have leaned heavily Democratic for decades, and recent polls show a tight race for an office a Democrat hasn’t won since the 1990s.
Donalds is making a direct play for that demographic. He recently told CBS News he is targeting “north of 20%” of the Black vote. That would be a notable shift for a Republican in a state where President Trump won around 15% of Black votes in his 2024 presidential bid, and where around 13% of Black voters backed Gov. Ron DeSantis’s reelection in 2022, according to CBS News exit polls.
The Numbers Behind the Target
The math is simple for Donalds. Winning even a fifth of the Black vote could tip a close race, and he is betting that personal connections and door-knocking can move the needle. His campaign has focused on knocking on doors in North Miami and Broward County to reach Black voters, and in Doral and Hialeah to target Hispanic voters.
“Voters shouldn’t judge me solely on my history with Trump.”
That quote is Donalds’s own response to questions about his past. He is trying to separate himself from the president who has dominated the Republican Party for the last six years.
Trump’s Surrogate
Donalds served nine years in Congress and Florida’s state House before running for governor. He co-headlined a multi-city tour with Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas called “Congress, Cigars & Cognac” in 2024, serving as one of Trump’s most visible surrogates to Black voters. That connection is the baggage he is now trying to shed.
Only three elected governors have been Black in U.S. history. Donalds is among three nominees this year who would be the first Black Republican governors ever elected.
The Summit Snub
The story also involves a snub. Legacy Con’s organizers told CBS News they also invited Democratic nominee David Jolly to address the summit, but he didn’t attend, citing a scheduling conflict. That detail puts the race in a sharp context: the Republican is courting Black voters directly, while the Democrat chose to skip an event designed for them.
Burney-Clark’s Warning
Jasmine Burney-Clark, founder of the nonpartisan voting rights group Equal Ground, said Donalds declined to sign her organization’s candidate pledge affirming intent to sign a Democratic-backed state voting rights bill. Jolly did sign it.
Burney-Clark called the outreach she saw ‘targeting and manipulation.’ That is a serious charge. It suggests Donalds is using Black identity to build a coalition, and she believes he is doing it insincerely.
What the Vote Tells Us
One voter in Miami Gardens offered a more personal view. Jermaine Woodside, 54, a customer at Black-owned Lorna’s Caribbean Restaurant, said he became more open to Donalds after an hour-long dinner conversation but urged him not to associate with Trump.
Kalyn James, a Miami resident, held a “Vote Blue” sign with Donalds’ name crossed out while he worked a meet-and-greet in Overtown. Those two reactions capture the split in the Black community: some are willing to listen, and some are already locked in.
The polling shows the race is close enough that every vote counts. Donalds knows that, and his strategy is built on the assumption that Black voters can be moved. Whether that movement is real or manufactured is the question hanging over the campaign.
- Donalds targets “north of 20%” of the Black vote.
- Trump won around 15% of Black votes in 2024.
- Around 13% of Black voters backed DeSantis in 2022.
- Only three governors have been Black in U.S. history.
- Three nominees this year would be the first Black Republican governors ever elected.
The pattern is clear. Black voters in Florida have voted for Democrats at high rates for years. Donalds is trying to break that pattern by appealing directly to them, and the polling shows the race is close enough that his efforts could matter.
Whether the outreach is sincere or manipulative is a judgment call, and the people closest to the campaign have strong views. Burney-Clark sees manipulation; Donalds sees a genuine effort. Voters will have to decide which version of the story to believe.
The race is tight, the stakes are high, and the campaign is just getting started. Donalds is making his move, and the Black vote in Florida will likely decide whether it lands.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs Byron Donalds’s attempt to reach Black voters on their own terms and is against the concentration of political power in any single office or party, including the state offices that keep tracking and measuring these same voting patterns. The paper does not belong to any party and judges candidates issue by issue against its north star of individual freedom, small business and no concentrations of power, saying where a candidate is right and where wrong.
Donalds’s door-knocking and personal appeals in North Miami, Broward County, Doral and Hialeah are a direct play for a demographic that has leaned heavily Democratic for decades. His stated goal of winning “north of 20%” of the Black vote, compared to Trump’s roughly 15% and DeSantis’s roughly 13% in recent races, shows the scale of the shift he is trying to engineer. That ambition is worth noting without endorsing.
What worries the paper is the machinery behind the numbers. The state offices that track these voting patterns are part of a system that measures everything it can measure, and that kind of accumulation of information is a form of power that gathers in one place. The paper is against any office or agency writing its own authority or gathering mandates over private life, whatever party holds it.
Source material: “Florida GOP governor candidate Byron Donalds courts skeptical Black voters,” CBS News.
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