Byron Donalds, a congressman backed by Donald Trump, won the Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday in the race to succeed Ron DeSantis.
Donalds, who has represented south-west Florida since 2021, trounced three reasonably prominent Republican rivals, including Jay Collins, DeSantis’s handpicked lieutenant governor.
If he wins the November election, as he is expected to do in the conservative stronghold, Donalds would become the first Black governor in any southern US state.
So confident was Donalds of victory that his television advertisements in the weeks leading to the primary ignored his Republican challengers and focused on former Republican congressman David Jolly, who secured the Democratic party’s nomination on Tuesday.