As Florida voters head out to the early voting polls this week, Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly said he is fighting for a new way to lead the Sunshine State.
Jolly, 53, recently opened a campaign office in Miami Gardens, Florida’s largest majority-Black city. He had blunt words for his Republican opponent.
“I know today that the economic disparity, the health disparities and education disparities between the races are greater today than when Martin Luther King gave his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,” said Jolly. “I know that, and Byron Donalds doesn’t, and I have a plan to fight to close that gap, and Byron Donalds doesn’t. I think Byron Donalds has an anti-Black agenda.”
Jolly’s campaign videos for governor show the former Republican, former independent and now a Democrat receiving support from across the aisle.
The fifth generation Floridian, who grew up in Miami, said he is more than familiar with another David who beat seemingly impossible odds.
“So David versus Goliath, a little bit?” asked 7News’ Robbin Simmons.
“We’re defying history a little bit, we’re defying gravity a little bit. Look, a lot of cycles, money matters, but Florida’s voters have shown us that’s not this cycle,” said Jolly.
Jolly said the same old players are responsible for his opponent’s war chest.
“I’ll give him a little bit of grace here. Byron Donalds is just a vessel for the same special interests that have controlled Tallahassee for 30 years,” he said. “He’s owned by the same special interests — the utilities, the insurance companies, the for-profit schools, now big tech, big data and the [artificial intelligence] centers. My job is to stay on the message about housing, health care, food and gas, good schools and no data centers.”
Jolly said public education in Florida needs investment, better pay for teachers and a focus on turning around test scores for eighth graders, but his stance on school choice sets him apart from other Democrats.
“We’ll keep choice with a whole new set of rules. If a voucher school takes a voucher, they should have to teach your kid to read, they should have to provide access to college-bound classes, or the trades or the arts. Right now, they don’t have to provide anything,” he said.
7News interviewed Jolly on a day he visited Doral, as the temporary protected status issue and immigration enforcement tactics linger on the minds of Venezuelans and Haitians in South Florida.
“I think the words that unsettled me the most was the woman who said, ‘It’s a hunting field, a hunting field,’ where ICE is profiling people based on how they look, the color of their skin, the language they speak. It’s profiling, and it’s wrong,” he said.
Jolly’s did not mince words when it comes to the success that some democratic socialists have seen in recent elections.
“When it comes to the Democratic Party and [the Democratic Socialists of America], I reject the DSA, I reject socialism.” he said. “I also reject right-wing authoritarianism. I think the greatest threat we face is right-wing authoritarianism right now, strongman authoritarianism.”
Jolly, who served nearly three years in Congress as a Republican and about six years as an independent, said he’s a proud Democrat, not a reluctant one, arguing he offers voters a clear contrast.
“I am trying to take that message to independents who are frustrated by the economy, to disaffected Republicans who say, ‘You know, I signed up for the Republican Party, but I didn’t sign up for the cruelty, and I didn’t sign up for the crazy,'” he said.
After more than 30 years, Jolly said, voters in the Sunshine State are ready to elect a Democrat to the Governor’s Mansion again. If elected, he said, his first call would be to Republicans in the Florida Legislature to say, “Let’s work together and not waste the next four years.”
