President Donald Trump's home state is looking like a battleground again with less than four weeks until Election Day. In Florida, which Trump carried by about 13 points in 2024 and Republicans have treated as safe for most of a decade, a St. Pete Polls survey found Republican Florida Representative Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly, a former Republican congressman, tied at 45 percent in the race for governor.
Donalds led by a tenth of a point before rounding. Seven percent were undecided, and 4 percent picked someone else. The same poll showed Republican U.S.
Senator Ashley Moody ahead of Democratic state Representative Angie Nixon, 47 percent to 45 percent, within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Six percent were undecided. Newsweek reached out to the Donalds, Jolly, Moody and Nixon campaigns for comment.
The governor's race has barely moved in St. Pete Polls' surveys, but the undecided pool is shrinking. Donalds and Jolly each gained about a point since the pollster's mid-September survey, which had Donalds ahead 44 percent to 43 percent.
Most of Jolly's edge comes from voters registered outside the two major parties, who favor him 49 percent to 33 percent. In September his margin with them was 12 points. A Mason-Dixon poll for NBC 6 and Telemundo put him ahead of independents, 47 percent to 28 percent.
Crossover voting tilts his way too, if only slightly: 15 percent of Republicans say they'll back Jolly, against 9 percent of Democrats who'd go for Donalds. Both men keep about four in five of their own party's voters. With younger voters, Jolly's numbers are lopsided.
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