{"id":77579,"date":"2026-08-18T19:54:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T00:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/18\/never-trump-republican-is-top-dem-choice-in-crucial-florida-primary\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T19:54:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T00:54:52","slug":"never-trump-republican-is-top-dem-choice-in-crucial-florida-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/18\/never-trump-republican-is-top-dem-choice-in-crucial-florida-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Never-Trump Republican is top Dem choice in crucial Florida primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Jolly, a former Republican congressman and now a Democratic candidate for governor in Florida<\/a>, won a primary election on Tuesday evening, topping a crowded field of hopefuls to become the party’s nominee to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n

DeSantis is prevented by term limits from running for a third term.<\/p>\n

Jolly\u2019s win sets up a race to see if a moderate Democrat can tempt a solidly Republican state<\/a> to voice its frustrations with the Trump administration and, more pointedly, with Trump himself.<\/p>\n

In many ways, that\u2019s the crux of Jolly\u2019s message as a candidate.<\/p>\n

HAWAII GOV JOSH GREEN CRUISES TO DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY WIN, SETS UP FALL MATCHUP WITH GOP NOMINEE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Jolly previously served as the representative for Florida<\/a>\u2019s 13th Congressional District from 2014-2017, but, after losing the general election to Democratic challenger Charlie Crist, he began voicing disagreements with the direction of the GOP and President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Jolly published an opinion piece with NBC,<\/a> stating that “you can\u2019t be never-Trump and be a Republican.”<\/p>\n

“I was a sitting Republican member of Congress who took to the house floor and called on then-candidate Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race,” Jolly said.<\/p>\n

On the campaign<\/a> trail in 2016, Jolly balked at a proposed “Muslim ban” Trump and the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump made crude remarks about advances toward women.<\/p>\n

IDAHO DEMOCRATS CHOOSE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER IN UPHILL RACE AGAINST INCUMBENT GOP GOVERNOR<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“Three years later, I find myself fully immersed in a dwindling coalition of Republicans often referred to as never-Trumpers. That is, I was immersed in that coalition \u2014 last month I came to the conclusion that it was time to finally leave the Republican Party and registered with no party affiliation,” Jolly said.<\/p>\n

Now, running as a Democrat<\/a>, Jolly has pitched himself as an opportunity to break Trump\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n

“Since the emergence of Donald Trump in 2015 when he came down the escalator, he has disrupted the entire American experiment over the last 10 years,” Jolly said in a campaign video.<\/a><\/p>\n

“If in the state of Florida, Florida\u2019s voters are the ones who say, \u2018not anymore, \u2018we will have provided a reset.”<\/p>\n

Among his top priorities, Jolly lists insurance affordability, public schools and campaign<\/a> finance reform on his website. He also supports more traditionally Democratic platform elements like increasing access to abortion.<\/p>\n

FLORIDA GOP GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY CANDIDATE SAYS AS GOVERNOR, HE’D ‘SHUT DOWN’ EVERY ABORTION CLINIC IN STATE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In his campaign, Jolly has raised nearly $6.4 million, according to<\/a> the Florida Department of State Division of Elections. Having secured the nomination, Jolly faces an uphill race to the general election on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n

Florida last elected a Democrat for governor in 1994, in Lawton Chiles. Chiles served from 1991 until his death in 1998, just three weeks before the end of his second term.<\/p>\n

Most recently, DeSantis last won reelection<\/a> in a 49.4% to 40.0% victory over Democratic challenger Charlie Crist, a former Biden representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Jolly, a former Republican congressman and now a Democratic candidate for governor in Florida, won a primary election on Tuesday evening, topping a crowded field of hopefuls to become the party’s nominee to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Sunshine State. DeSantis is prevented by term limits from running for a third term. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}