Byron Donalds

Donalds was born in 1978 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised by a single mother; he grew up a Democrat.⁠[1][2][3][4]

At the 2024 Republican National Convention he said: “My mother took me out of public schools because she could see public education was failing me.”⁠[4]

He moved to Florida at 17, arriving on a Greyhound bus, and graduated from Florida State University in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing.⁠[4][2]

Donalds worked as a waiter and later built a career in banking, finance and insurance in Southwest Florida, working as a commercial credit officer and a portfolio manager.⁠[4][3][2]

With his wife, Erika, he became active in the school-choice movement; then-Governor Rick Scott appointed him to the Board of Trustees of Florida SouthWestern State College.⁠[4][3]

Donalds was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, representing District 80 (Hendry County and eastern Collier County) until 2020.⁠[3][2]

He chaired the PreK-12 Quality Subcommittee in the 2018–2019 session and the Insurance & Banking Subcommittee in the 2019–2020 session, focusing on elder affairs, criminal justice reform and children’s access to a quality education.⁠[3]

On August 18, 2020, Donalds won the Republican primary for Florida’s 19th congressional district with 23,492 votes (22.6%), a margin of a few hundred votes; on November 3 that year he defeated Democrat Cindy Banyai with 61.3% of the vote, and he took office on January 3, 2021.⁠[2][4]

Donalds serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Financial Services Committee, and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus.⁠[3][4]

In 2023 some of his Republican colleagues nominated him for speaker of the House.⁠[4]

He did not seek re-election to the House in 2026; his current term ends on January 3, 2027.⁠[2]

Term limits barred Ron DeSantis, governor since 2019, from running again. On August 18, 2026, Donalds, who had President Trump’s endorsement, won the Republican primary for governor of Florida with 796,267 votes (47.9%) against 10 other Republicans, including Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins and former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner.⁠[5][2][6][4]

He pledged to cut state and local government spending, saying: “We are going to DOGE all local governments and all state agencies.” He also said he would pursue eliminating homestead property taxes and that any property tax proposal “will not jeopardize funding for our police, firefighters, and first responders.”⁠[6]

In the November 3, 2026, gubernatorial election Donalds and his running mate, former state Senator Bryan Avila, faced Democrat David JollyDavid JollyDavid Jolly is an American politician and attorney who represented Florida’s 13th congressional district in the U.S. House as a Republican from 2014 to 2017. He left the Republican Party in 2018, registered as a Democrat in 2025 and was the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida in 2026.Open the full entry. The Associated Press called the race for Donalds just after 9 p.m. that night, and Jolly called Donalds to concede.⁠[5][7]

He will succeed DeSantis and is scheduled to take office on January 5, 2027; he is also the first Black Republican elected governor in the United States.⁠[7][5][2]

Office of U.S. Congressman Byron Donalds: Official website: https://donalds.house.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

X: Public account: https://x.com/RepDonaldsPress (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjy0W7sksMz37IYY27tAZNQ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]