One Day, Two Bus Tours, the Whole State: Donalds and Jolly Spend Their Final Day Crossing Florida
Tarpon Springs to Sarasota for the Republican, Haines City to Broward for the Democrat — with both campaigns passing through the same Polk County ground at midday, hours before Florida decides its next governor.
Florida's race for governor spent its last full day the way it has spent the fall: everywhere at once. Republican Byron Donalds opened Monday in Tarpon Springs on his "Defending the Florida Dream" bus tour, headed to Polk County at noon alongside Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and US Senate candidate Ashley Moody, and was set to wrap the day in Sarasota on Monday afternoon. Democrat David Jolly and his running mate Gwen Graham were closing their "Believe in Better" tour on a matching arc — Haines City, in the same Polk County, on Monday morning, then east to Brevard County and final rallies in Palm Beach and Broward counties on Monday night.
"We know that the voters of Florida are going to show up to polls in a major way on Election Day, and we are going to win the race, and I'm going to be your next governor," Donalds told supporters over the weekend, in the closing argument he carried onto the bus: fight for the state, lower the cost of construction and insurance, build the roads, protect the aquifers and keep farm land in production. Jolly's close, delivered in South Florida on Sunday, ran on values before policy: "Our kids, our grandkids are looking at us when the nation is breaking," he said, arguing that the economy should work for everybody.
What is left now is the voting itself. Registered voters who did not cast a ballot during early voting must vote in person on Tuesday at their assigned precinct; Florida polls open at 7 a.m. local time and close at 7 p.m., and every voter must present a valid photo and signature identification at check-in. By Tuesday night, one of the two men who crossed the state on Monday will be Florida's governor-elect.
