With a week until Election Day, David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, knows he needs to boost his margins with voters across the state.
“Let’s be honest, where we have lost in the past, we’ve got to lose by less. And where we’ve won, we’ve got to win by more,” Jolly said at a rally in Tallahassee on Tuesday evening.
He and his running mate, Gwen Graham, attracted a crowd of about 125 people on Tuesday night, including leading Tallahassee officials: Rep. Allison Tant, Mayor John Dailey, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried, and Rev. RB Holmes of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church.
Jolly and his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, campaigned in Florida’s capital city on Tuesday, each with different objectives. While Donalds mainly urged residents to get out and vote to keep GOP control, Jolly said his move to visit Tallahassee again was to make it around the state one last time.
The plan is to finish their campaign in South Florida, and Jolly and Graham will be in Broward County on Monday night, the eve of the election.
“We’re leaving it all on the field,” Jolly told reporters.
A poll by the University of North Florida released last week shows Jolly and Donalds virtually tied.
Fried said it’s a drastic change from 2022’s governor race, where Democratic candidate Charlie Crist lost by nearly 20 pounds to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fried had run in the Democratic primary that year and lost to Crist 60-35 percent.
“We have crawled our way out of this and are never looking back,” Fried said.
Earlier in the day, Donalds spoke at a local Tallahassee restaurant and urged voters to stay the course with the GOP leadership it has had in the governor’s mansion for nearly 30 years.
“And what have we seen as a result? We’ve become the number one state in all of America,” Donalds said.
Republican leaders, including Donalds’ running mate Bryan Avila, stressed the importance of keeping Florida in GOP hands, especially as some Democratic leaders embrace socialism.
Earlier in the week, conservatives called out Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, for skirting a question about whether there was a dictatorship in Cuba in a recent interview
But Jolly called it a tactic from the Republican party to “stay divided.”
“They’re yelling ‘communism, socialism, radicalism.’ We’re not radical, we’re not even cool, folks,” Jolly said.
Jolly slammed Florida Republican policies, calling the culture wars “racist” and divisive and highlighting Florida’s low pay for teachers and increasing number of uninsured residents.
If elected, Jolly said Florida would expand Medicaid, create a pilot program for more primary health care and invest in a 10-year-plan for a public school “renaissance.”
“We want the economy to keep growing. Where it’s working in Florida, let’s keep it working. But it’s not working for everybody,” Jolly said. “My opponent and those on the other side of the aisle don’t care to fix it for half of this state.”
Jolly said he was confident about next week’s election.
“We’ve put in the field work, we’ve demonstrated our commitment to the community, and hopefully that will ultimately translate to votes,” he said.