David Jolly was a Republican member of Congress for a couple of terms, serving his Tampa-area constituents before losing a re-election bid in 2016, narrowly coming up short against Charlie Crist — a Republican-turned-Democrat who ended up running for governor.
Nearly a decade later, an eerily similar set of circumstances are unfolding: Jolly, like Crist, left the Republican Party. Jolly, like Crist, became a Democrat. And Jolly, like Crist, is now running for governor under his new party banner. NBC News reported:
Democrats face a huge uphill climb in 2026 to retake Florida’s governorship for the first time in more than two decades, but David Jolly says he is up to the challenge. Jolly, a former Republican congressman who left the party in large part because of his opposition to President Donald Trump, is announcing Thursday that he is running for governor.
Though Election Day 2026 is still more than a year away, Jolly is now the first and only high-profile candidate to launch a Democratic statewide bid, though there are other potential candidates who’ve expressed an interest in the race.
(Disclosure: Jolly is a former MSNBC political contributor, who’s made frequent on-air and online appearances.)
By any fair measure, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination in 2026, whether it’s the former congressman or not, the gubernatorial race is likely to be challenging. While Florida used to be seen as the nation’s largest and most competitive battleground, the Sunshine State has moved sharply to the right in recent years, solidifying its reputation as a red state, despite having backed Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy twice in 2008 and 2012.
Indeed, Floridians haven’t elected a Democratic governor in more than three decades, though the 2018 race was extraordinarily close.








