Green narrowly wins 7-way Congressional primary; CFO, Ag Commissioner races set
Congressional District 9: Green narrowly wins: Dan Green of Indian River County looks to have won the packed Republican primary race to take on Democratic incumbent Darren Soto in November.
Green led 25.4% of the vote across seven counties in the newly-drawn District 9, narrowly defeated Okeechobee County’s Ben Butler (24.4%) by less than 600 votes in a race that the Associated Press still had not called by 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds fended off challenges from 10 other Republicans in Tuesday’s primary to carry his party’s nomination for governor into the general election.
He’ll face former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, a former Republican who switched parties and easily defeated five other Democrats.
Donalds called on Republicans to come together and immediately focused on Jolly.
“Now is the time for the Republican Party to unite. By working together, we can make Florida more affordable and defend the Florida Dream for our families, seniors, and young people,” Donalds posted on X. “My Democrat opponent would raise taxes, make life more expensive, and bring the Democrats’ radical left agenda to the Sunshine State – Florida cannot afford Liberal David Jolly.”
Donalds, 47, faced vocal opposition from Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, former House Speaker Paul Renner and conservative activist James Fishback.
As of Tuesday evening, Donalds had 48 percent of the vote, while Collins received 25 percent, Fishback had 10 percent and Renner had 9 percent.
Jolly, 53, brushed aside his opposition, taking 62 percent of the vote. The next-largest vote-getter in the Democratic primary was Dayna Marie Foster, who received 15 percent, and state Rep. Dotie Joseph of North Miami garnered 10 percent.
Jolly also was eager to pivot to the general election.
“We’re a state gripped by an affordability crisis and exhausted by culture wars. People want change,” Jolly said in a video posted on X.
Backed by an endorsement from President Donald Trump, Donalds dominated the field and easily outraised his opponents, raking in more than $110 million. Much of the money he spent in the primary was aimed at Jolly, with ads bashing him for supporting transgender issues, such as allowing transgender women in women’s bathrooms and to play in female sports.
But Donalds bore the brunt of attacks from Collins and Renner, who accused him of being weak on crime, favoring data center construction and slammed him for refusing to debate them.
Donalds, who is Black, also shrugged off racist jeers from Fishback, who called him a “DEI hire” and a “slave” to his donors.
At one point Collins sued to kick Fishback off the ballot, alleging his voting record in Washington D.C. in 2020 and the purchase of a primary residence there in 2021 showed he didn’t live for seven consecutive years in Florida as required by the state constitution. A Leon County judge, though, rejected the suit saying there wasn’t enough evidence.
Collins campaigned heavily on his military background as a Green Beret who had his leg amputated due to injuries sustained in Iraq, as well as his appointment by DeSantis at lieutenant governor in August 2025. He even tapped DeSantis’ Director of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, to be his running mate on Monday evening.
But DeSantis never formally endorsed Collins or anyone else in the campaign, although he specifically criticized Donalds.
After initially saying Renner’s decision to enter the race in 2025 was misguided, DeSantis this month said he would make a “good governor.”
Renner touted his term as Speaker in 2022-2024 in which much of DeSantis’ conservative agenda was passed, including universal school vouchers, bans on transgender surgery for minors, eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion policies, and a bill allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a license.
The efforts of Donalds’ opponents, however, ran into a wall of campaign ads and implicit trust in Trump among the GOP electorate.
In the Democratic primary, Jolly waltzed to victory over Foster and Joseph, who got in the race at the end of qualifying. Joseph wanted to give Democrats an alternative to Jolly, a former Republican who moved away from the GOP as Trump rose to prominence. But she had minimal fundraising and low name recognition throughout the state.
~Gary Rohrer
Democrats Pick Taddeo, Atkins to Challenge Ingoglia, Simpson in Cabinet Races
Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson easily dispatched their Republican opponents Tuesday night as Democrats selected their candidates to go up against the well-funded incumbents.
Annette Taddeo, a former state senator from Miami who was the party’s lieutenant governor candidate in 2018, appeared set to take on Ingoglia. She received 66 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Earle Ford in the Democratic primary for chief financial officer, in unofficial results posted by the Division of Elections.
Taddeo, who was the party’s lieutenant governor candidate in 2018, vowed to be an independent watchdog “fighting for affordability, holding insurance companies accountable.”
“The fight for a more affordable, accountable Florida is just beginning, and I'm ready to take that fight to every corner of our state,” Taddeo said in a statement.
Ingoglia, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the Cabinet office in July 2025 after more than decade in the Legislature, was well ahead of Frank Collige, a U.S. Air Force veteran and insurance claims investigator from Glen St. Mary. He received 61 percent to Collige’s 31 percent.
“I’m eager to spread our message of a smaller, more accountable government that costs less across the Sunshine State,” Ingoglia added in the statement.
Ingoglia has spent much of this year campaigning for Amendment 3, the proposed property tax cut on the November ballot to help cut local government spending.
Collige, who wanted to restore transparency, protect consumers, eliminate waste, and conduct real audits instead of political spending reviews, spent most of the $19,500 he raised.
Ingoglia, also a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida that has provided staffing and consultant assistance to his campaign, had more than $700,000 remaining from the $1.26 million raised for the primary in his campaign account. Ingoglia is also chairman of two political committees --- Government Gone Wild and Friends of Blaise Ingoglia --- that collectively had $4.4 million available as of Aug. 13.
Taddeo raised just over $100,000 for the primary, of which nearly $44,000 was spent by Aug. 13.
Ford had about $2,000 on hand as of Aug. 13 after raising almost $15,000 and putting another $8,000 of his own money into the contest.
The CFO position oversees the Florida Department of Financial Services and serves as the state fire marshal.
Meanwhile, Joey Mendoza Atkins, a lawyer from Miami, was primed to become the Democratic Party’s nominee to take on Simpson, the former state Senate president and the only member of the current Cabinet to previously been elected statewide.
Atkins, who also describes himself as a sports agent, was up on Don Prichard, a Pembroke Park law enforcement officer and former Broward County Sheriff’s deputy, 60 percent to 40 percent in results posted Tuesday night by the division.
Simpson, a farmer from Trilby who spent more than a decade in the state Legislature including as the Senate president during the 2021 and 2022 sessions, was set to easily fend off the challenge from Matt Taylor of Plant City.
Taylor, who raised more than $280,000 in his bid to unseat Simpson, goes by the moniker Matt the Welder to highlight his working-class upbringing.
Simpson begins the two-month slog towards the general election with $522,000 remaining from the $1.1 million he amassed in his campaign account. Simpson also oversees four political committees --- the Florida Green PAC, Friends of Wilton Simpson, Future Florida and Home Grown PAC --- that as of Aug. 13 collectively held more than $25 million.
Atkins loaned his campaign $8,500, which covered the qualifying fee, and raised $1,700 for the contest.
Prichard’s contributions for the contest sat at just under $30,000, of which $15,500 was his own money.
The Cabinet office oversees the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which manages more than a million acres of state forests, protects Florida’s livestock, is a clearinghouse for consumer concerns, and inspects a wide variety of businesses from gas stations and food processing plants to amusement parks.
The third Cabinet office, Attorney General, bypassed the primary. Neither Attorney General James Uthmeier or Democratic challenger Jose Javier Rodriguez, a former state legislator and assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor under President Joe Biden, had party challengers.
~Jim Turner
