Byron Donalds is Trying to Convince Black Floridians to Trust a Top Trump Ally

Byron Donalds wants to make history as the first Black elected governor of Florida. But first, he has to convince Black voters that electing a Black governor who is one of President Donald Trump’s biggest allies is actually a win. That’s proving harder than the Republican candidate might have hoped, as critics wonder if electing a Black governor counts as progress if they are advancing politics they believe hurt Black Floridians.

Leading up to the November election, Donalds has been aggressively courting Black voters, arguing that Democrats have taken their support for granted and that they should judge him by his policies, not his party. According to POLITICO, his strategy is simple: convince enough Black Floridians to cross the aisle, and he doesn’t need to win the Black vote–he just needs Democrats to lose enough of it.

Donalds told CBS News that he is targeting “north of 20%” of the Black vote, a significant jump from the roughly 13% Gov. Ron DeSantis received from Black voters in his 2022 reelection and the roughly 15% Trump won in Florida in 2024.

RELATED: How Angie Nixon Beat the Odds to Pull Off Florida’s Most Shocking Primary Upset

His pitch is running headfirst into skepticism from Black voters and political leaders who see his Trump-aligned record as fundamentally at odds with their interests.

“I think there’s a lot of Black voters who are looking at my campaign because they’re just trying to figure out who’s going to be the best person to lead Florida into the future,” Donalds told CBS. He added that Black voters are “starting to not be as monolithically tied to the Democrat Party.”

That pitch comes with an obvious complication: Trump’s endorsement has helped propel Donalds through the Republican primary. The president made his support unmistakable, declaring that Donalds had his “Complete and Total Endorsement” and telling him, “RUN, BYRON, RUN!”

Now, Donalds is trying to sell Black voters on the idea that his race and his record can be separated from the politics of the MAGA movement that helped put him on the ballot. That is where the pushback starts.

Donalds lost 17 counties in the Republican primary, including 16 where roughly 92% of Republican voters are white, according to primary results. This raises uncomfortable questions about whether some Republicans are actually ready to vote for a Black man for governor.

Donalds rejects that premise, telling CBS that “Florida really has become the microcosm of what we all want” and that “it’s a meritocracy.” But Black critics are asking voters to look beyond the history-making optics and focus on Donalds’ actual politics, particularly his record on voting rights and his alignment with Trump.

Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon has been blunt about what she thinks Black voters should do: “Don’t vote for Byron Donalds,” according to the Miami Herald.

Nixon argued that being Black does not automatically make Donalds’ politics beneficial to Black Floridians, telling the Miami Herald that “Byron Donalds doesn’t care.”

And then there’s Trump’s shadow that keeps following Donalds. After reports that Donalds had removed much of his presence from his campaign website, the president warned that if Florida voters believed Donalds had “dropped” him, “he would lose the Election.”

That leaves Donalds with a complicated sales pitch. On one hand, he wants Black voters to believe they can make history by electing him. But at the same time, he’s asking them to embrace a Republican movement many of those same voters have spent years resisting.

Donalds currently holds a 7-point lead over Democratic nominee David Jolly, according to a new NBC South Florida/Telemundo Station Group poll. With less than a month until the midterms on Nov. 3, it’s up to Florida voters to cut through the noise and choose which candidate is right for them.