Florida voters will choose Tuesday between Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly in a governor’s race that is testing the endurance of the state’s conservative shift in recent years.
A Democrat hasn’t won the Florida governor’s race since Lawton Chiles in 1994. But Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Tampa, switched parties and campaigned as a centrist ready to move the state beyond years of fierce culture wars stoked by outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Donalds, a congressman from southwest Florida who won the Republican nomination with President Donald Trump’s backing, has sought to define Jolly as an out-of-touch liberal. He would be Florida’s first Black governor and has throughout the campaign reached out to Black voters who have overwhelmingly backed Democrats.
The results will signal whether Trump’s unpopularity, which has weighed down Republicans across the U.S., will extend into his adopted home state.…