Jolly to national Democrats: Show me some money

TAMPA — With more polls and election analysts suggesting David Jolly could become the first Democrat to win a governor’s race in Florida in more than three decades, the former GOP congressman is appealing for money to defeat Republican Byron Donalds.

This week the national elections rating group Decision Desk HQ shifted the Florida governor’s race to a “Toss up,” saying Donalds has a 60% probability of winning, down from 68%.

Speaking to several hundred people who gathered in Tampa’s Ybor City for a Tiger Bay  Club forum, Jolly was asked about what it was going to take to convince the majority of the electorate he is the better candidate to take the state forward over the next four years.

“I need the national Democratic Party to come into Florida and start spending money,” he said to cheers, repeating what he said was a claim by a top Tallahassee Republican consultant that the only way he could lose is “if the national Democrats chose to take a pass on Florida like they have in the past 10 years.”

Jolly has acknowledged he was never going to outraise Donalds for campaign contributions, but the money gap is widening as much as the polls are tightening. Donalds has now raised more than $115 million via his political committee, while Jolly has raised $15.8 million, combining his regular and political committee campaign accounts.

“If the national party doesn’t come, I worry about this race,” Jolly told reporters following his one-hour appearance.

“I don’t mean to punch at Byron, but $75 to $100 million used on lies can be effective,” he added. “If we lose this race because Byron’s able to convince voters of something that’s not true, when all we need is a little bit from national Democrats to come in and shore up this race, arguably prosecute the case against Byron, I’m not going to have the resources to do that.”

That tune is different than what Jolly was singing from a month ago.

On the eve of the Aug. 18 primary, Jolly said that while he didn’t want to be “naïve” about financial resources to remain competitive, “this is a cycle where you can get outspent 10 to one and still win.”  He added, “I think we’re going to see money come in.”

Hillsborough County state Sen. Brian Nathan was one Democrat outspent roughly 10:1 when he defeated Republican Josie Tomkow in a special election in Hillsborough County in March, but that race was relegated to one county, not a state with more than 13.5 million registered voters.

Some Democratic strategists are skeptical national Democratic dollars will flow to Florida.

“If you keep waiting on national, it’ll never come,” Democratic fundraising strategist Jackson McMillan wrote in a social media post Friday. “Build up your grassroots apparatus instead, your small $ program should be so much better than it is!”

Decision on not debating is ‘final’

One way Jolly could get his message out would be a debate with Donalds, but the Democrat announced Sunday he would not do so this cycle.

Jolly was asked by one member in the audience to reconsider, saying it was his “duty” to do so.

Jolly disagreed, declaring firmly that his decision was “final.”

He repeated comments he made earlier this week that he didn’t want to “platform” a candidate in Donalds, who he says has “lied” about his platform, and that he wants to lead by example to his two young children about “elevating our politics to something better, not into driving us into further division and vitriol.”

Who has the better plan on property insurance?

One of his policy positions that Jolly says Donalds is lying about is the latter’s contention that his plan on property insurance would constitute a “$1,000 tax” — as Donalds-sponsored ads have said on television for weeks now.

Donalds has based his statements by alluding to a report from Florida State University about a plan introduced by a bipartisan pair of Florida lawmakers in 2024. (That plan is not publicly available but was shared with the Phoenix by the Donalds campaign.)

Jolly acknowledged to reporters that his plan is “a bold initiative” but would need to go before voters as a constitutional amendment to be approved.

“I can’t do it by executive action, but the reality is, Florida homeowners feel more anxious than they do secure about the homeowners insurance market,” he said.

Donalds released his “Bring Down the Bill” property insurance proposal earlier this month, which would maintain legislation passed by the GOP-led Legislature in 2022 and 2023. The Donalds campaign says those laws have reduced insurance lawsuits and in turn “helped lower insurance companies’ legal costs and resulted in lower homeowners insurance premiums.”

Jolly contends that’s simply more of what’s going on right now, and he says homeowners are not satisfied with the status quo.

He may be right about that. In what is being labeled a “landmark survey” of 1,511 Florida property insurance policyholders published Friday by the Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sentinel, and the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, 55% of those surveyed saw no signs the insurance market is improving and 26% said it it is getting worse.