Editor’s Note: The photos in this story were taken by Leon County Indivisible the evening of the event.
David Jolly is betting that Florida is ready for a political reboot.
In a state where Democrats haven’t won the governor’s mansion in three decades and current GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis has remade public policy in his own hard-right image, the former Republican congressman eventually turned Democrat barnstormed the state’s Panhandle.
His message blends scientific rigor, bipartisan appeal, and a promise to tear out the roots of DeSantis-era politics on day one. For instance, Jolly would fire Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo as a danger to public health and lock the door to his University of Florida office on his first day as governor.
Speaking to reporters in Tallahassee after a Capital Tiger Bay Club luncheon Sept. 18, Jolly placed Ladapo’s recent decision to end all vaccine mandates for children attending schools in DeSantis’ hands.
“This is Ron DeSantis’ responsibility. He appointed Ladapo. It’s at Ron DeSantis’ discretion and direction that this is happening. I think we should hold the governor accountable for it,” Jolly said.
Jolly also said if elected governor he would revisit the decision to resume a bear hunt this year because it was based on “faulty science.” Earlier, in his talk with the political and business leaders that make up Capital Tiger Bay, Jolly said as a Democrat “we get to accept math and science and data” about public health, vaccines, and the management of natural resources.
Introduced as an idealist, Jolly believes he can resurrect the fighting spirit in a Democratic Party that has not won a governor’s race since 1994 and prevent the term-limited DeSantis from cementing his legacy with a Republican successor.
The night before he drew more than 100 people to a 90-minute town hall at the Leon County library in downtown Tallahassee.
Jolly tells people he rejects the traditional notion of a partisan divide and argues effective solutions can come from the left, center and the right.
Eighteen hours of stumping in Tallahassee was part of a four-day Panhandle swing through Milton, Pensacola and Panama City and highlights how he seeks to build a governing coalition of voters who want to change the direction DeSantis policies are leading the state.
He believes Floridians are “screaming for change.” In Pensacola, Jolly drew 250 people to a town hall and was told it was the biggest gathering of Democrats for a fundraiser in recent memory.
He said he’s following in the footsteps of the last Democratic governor, Lawton Chiles. In his 1970 Senate campaign, Chiles began campaigning eight months before the election and visited every corner of the state. The maneuver earned him the nickname “Walkin’ Lawton” and made him a Florida Democrat icon.
Jolly is fresh off a poll that shows the race to be a dead heat because 65% of Florida voters do not know who he is but more than half of respondents also do not recognize the two Republican frontrunners, Congressman Byron Donalds of Naples and former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner of Palm Coast.
The September poll shows Jolly had erased a 5-point lead a Victory Insight poll had given Donalds in a June survey. Still, Florida Republicans hold a 1.5 million edge in voter registration, and Democrats haven’t won any statewide office since 2018.
A primary election is 11 months away but Jolly is working to persuade others, like Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings or former Congressman Al Lawson, not to enter the race and, instead, join his coalition.
A primary would weaken the Democratic nominee’s chance of winning in November, Jolly explains, leaving Democrats divided, exhausted and financially depleted.
“Look, Republicans are about to have a vicious primary on their side of the aisle. Let them have the circus. Let us unify,” Jolly said.
Jolly has about $700,000 in his campaign account and political committee, compared to about $1 million for Renner, and $19 million for Donalds, who is endorsed by President Trump. And Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and First Lady Casey DeSantis are still considered to be mulling whether to join the race.
Part of the steep climb Jolly has in unifying Democrats is that, for much of the past decade, he’s been a political wanderer.
A former Republican Congressman from St. Petersburg, he quit the GOP in 2018 to protest President Donald Trump’s policies. He became a member of the Independent Party, then a founding member of the Forward Party in 2021, before he joined the Democrats earlier this year.
“We’re going to put his feet to the fire to see if he is a true Democrat,” Ted Dugan of Leon County Indivisible said as he distributed cards for people to write questions to ask Jolly at the Tallahassee town hall. Leon County Indivisible is the rebranded Resist Trumpism group organized during Trump’s first term.
A tieless Jolly in blazer and slacks mingled easily as he introduced himself to attendees before the meeting. During, the questions concerned Ladapo’s rejection of vaccines, a mid-decade redistricting attempt, the proliferation of gun violence and the thousands of people on the Agency for Persons with Disabilities long-term waitlist.
Jolly later elaborated on his responses at the town hall to the group of Vietnam-era veterans, college students, state workers and retirees the next day at Tiger Bay.
“The ‘Free State of Florida’ is becoming one of the most expensive states in the country, and it is a place where you do not have the opportunity to exercise who you love or who you worship. You feel different in this state based on the color of your skin or where you were born, and that’s wrong,” Jolly said at the town hall.
At Tiger Bay, Jolly said Florida needs to create an economy that works for everybody, with a state government providing services that stimulate the economy, and where everyone is welcomed and empowered to participate.
It doesn’t matter “whether you are from Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Mexico,” Jolly said. “Those are the values that define this candidacy, my campaign, who I am.”
To that end, during his 18 hours in Tallahassee Jolly committed to 11 specific actions to take if he were to be elected governor. He says he would:
- Remove all of DeSantis’ appointments, including university trustees and water management district supervisors.
- Begin a 10-year “renaissance” to rebuild the public school system.
- Build on state Senate President Ben Albritton’s vision of a “rural renaissance.”
- Support a pay increase for public school teachers of 30% over three years.
- Revive the growth management policies of the 1980s.
- Lobby for creation of an independent redistricting commission.
- Change state law to enable tourism development tax dollars to be used to provide public services.
- Increase gun violence prevention.
- Significantly reduce the Agency for Persons with Disabilities waitlist.
- Reform the Public Service Commission’s regulation of utilities.
- Create a state fund to remove all hurricane coverage from private markets.
And while he talked about the idealism that drives those policies, to the town hall attendees he issued a call to action, asking them to join him in making them realities.
Jolly flipped the traditional campaign ask of “I want your vote” to “I need your help.”
“I’m not going to do this myself. I need your help uniting the party. I’m going to be the candidate that’s a member of this coalition. Please help me,” Jolly said. “We will shock the world when we win (in November 2026).”
As Tara Newsom, the director of the St. Petersburg College Center for Civic Learning & Community Engagement, put it, a vote “is a one-time ask.”
“But asking voters to help join in making change is building a movement,” she said. “Jolly understands that to build a movement requires personal commitment, those that join will need to be bridge builders and stay the course through not just a campaign but the hard work of governance.”
As governor, Jolly said he will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his supporters. His bridge-building pitch resonated with Sophia Palomo, a 19-year-old Tallahassee State College international studies student from Tampa. A self-described cynic, Palomo engaged Jolly after the town hall one-on-one about his plans to create a new coalition.
“So many people my age are hungry, grasping at every opportunity to further our priorities and find … someone to lead the pack,” Palomo said. Jolly gave Palomo his number and told her to text him if she has any questions about the campaign or to join efforts to unify Democrats.
When a reporter asked if she would text the candidate, Paloma said, “We’ll see. Even though he was previously a Republican, I’m actually very happy with his track record.”
At both the town hall and at Tiger Bay, Jolly stayed to field questions until no one was left to ask any. He and an aide then departed Tallahassee for an appearance that evening in Dunedin.