The Republican Byron Donalds will become the first Black governor in Florida’s history after beating the Democrat David Jolly in this Tuesday’s elections, according to projections released by the U.S. networks Fox News and NBC and collected by EFE.
Donalds’s victory marks a milestone in the state’s political history and allows the Republican Party to retain a governorship it has controlled since 1999, after the terms of Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis.
Donalds, until now a congressman in the House of Representatives for Florida and one of Donald Trump’s allies, will succeed DeSantis, who could not seek a third consecutive term. His rival, David Jolly, is a former Republican congressman who later joined the Democratic Party.
The outcome reinforces Republican continuity in one of the United States’ most electorally significant states, although the projection of its victory still needs to be completed with the scrutiny and the official certification of the results.