Florida's Two Big Races Enter Their Last Day: Donalds and Jolly Separated by a Handful of Points, Moody Ahead of Nixon in the Senate Race
Monday is the final full day of campaigning for the offices that run Florida: the governor's race, where final polls put Byron Donalds 2 to 4 points ahead of David Jolly, and the Senate race, where closing polls give Ashley Moody a 4-to-8-point lead over Angie Nixon — with 5.4 million ballots already in.
Florida wakes up Monday to the last full day of the 2026 campaign, and its two marquee races are both, in different ways, still races. In the contest for governor, Republican U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds is trying to keep the office in Republican hands, and Democrat David Jolly — a former Republican congressman — is trying to become the first Democrat elected governor of Florida in more than 30 years. The final polls compiled in the trackers read this run put Donalds ahead by 2 to 4 points: close enough that Tuesday's turnout, in a state where 5.4 million ballots are already cast, decides it.
The Senate race sits one notch further from a toss-up. Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, appointed to the seat after Marco Rubio resigned to become Secretary of State, faces Democratic challenger Angie Nixon, and the closing polls give Moody a lead of 4 to 8 points. Prediction markets read this run price the races the same way the polls do — Donalds near 70 cents, Moody near 90 — and one tracker's margin forecasts sit at Republican +3.9 for governor and Republican +6.0 for Senate. Nixon's strongest ground is independents, one Siena reading backing her 52 to 38 among them, and her closing calendar has leaned on national Democratic names, from Barack Obama's endorsement to appearances with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Moody's closing days tied her to President Trump at a Fort Myers public-safety rally.
Underneath the horse race, the two campaigns are arguing about the same Florida: the cost of insurance and housing. Donalds has campaigned on economic growth, fiscal restraint and insurance reform, and on Amendment 3, the proposed expansion of the homestead exemption he tells voters is 'in your hands.' Jolly has targeted moderate and independent voters with pledges of systemic insurance overhaul. The candidates held no general-election debates, so the argument has run through airwaves and rallies instead. It ends Tuesday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., at assigned precincts across the state — with Orange County, in the I-4 corridor, among the first places Florida will look.
