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Donalds wins the Florida governorship and Uthmeier stays as attorney general, projections show
Projections by the Associated Press, NBC News and Decision Desk HQ give Republicans the governorship, the Senate seat and the attorney general's office in Florida; the count is still uncertified and Miami's 27th district had no declared winner, with a margin of 770 votes.
Republican Byron Donalds was declared the projected winner of the Florida governorship over Democrat David Jolly, according to projections by the Associated Press and the NBC News Decision Desk. With about 98% of the vote counted he had 4,065,486 votes, 50%, against 3,963,591 for Jolly, 48.74%. Donalds will take office in January 2027 as successor to Ron DeSantis, who could not seek a third consecutive term, and will be the state's first Black governor.
To strengthen his bid for the Cuban American vote, Donalds picked state senator Bryan Ávila, the Hialeah born son of Cuban exiles, as his running mate at an event held at Miami's Freedom Tower. The FIU Cuba Poll 2026 put Donalds ahead of Jolly among Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade by 60% to 24%, and an N+Univision and YouGov survey gave him 51% to 42%.
Jolly, a former Republican congressman who later joined the Democratic Party, promised to press Donald Trump's administration to speed up residency applications from Cubans with the I-220A form and to suspend immigration cooperation agreements that allow state resources to be used to detain immigrants with no criminal record. On the island he was blunt: "I want to see the Cuban regime fall", in remarks translated by Yamacoa.
For the Senate, Republican Ashley Moody was declared the projected winner by Decision Desk HQ over Democrat Angie Nixon, with 50.67% of the vote against 48.20% and about 94% of the estimated vote reported. Moody was appointed in January 2025 after Marco Rubio left the seat to become secretary of state, and her win lets Republicans keep it until January 2029.
Republican congressman Carlos Giménez, born in Havana and a former Miami-Dade mayor, was declared the winner in the 28th district with 123,449 votes, 52.86%, against 106,714 for Democrat Phil Ehr, 45.69%. In the 27th district, María Elvira Salazar led Democrat Eliott Rodríguez by 770 votes, and in the 26th Mario Díaz-Balart led Nicole Locklin by 2,055 votes, both without a declared winner with more than 95% counted. Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz was reelected in the 20th district.
For attorney general, Republican James Uthmeier defeated Democrat José Javier Rodríguez with 4,159,137 votes, 51%, against 3,995,843, 49%, a margin of 163,294 votes, according to the count cited by Florida's Voice. DeSantis had appointed him in February 2025 to replace Moody, and the result gives him a full four year term.
On October 19, Uthmeier announced at Florida International University that he had obtained a state arrest warrant against Raúl Castro for conspiracy to commit first degree murder, tied to the shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996, in which Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, Pablo Morales and Carlos Costa were killed. Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan signed the warrant with no bail, and the case is moving in parallel with a federal indictment announced in May.
The results remained unofficial at the end of election day: Florida's state certification must be completed before any of the wins are formally declared.
Sources: CiberCuba · CiberCuba · Periódico Cubano
Data updated: 2026-11-04T04:15:00.000Z