David Jolly, a former Republican congressman, is running for Florida governor — as a Democrat.
He formally announced his candidacy Thursday morning, becoming the first prominent Democrat to do so. Jolly, who gained a national profile after losing his House seat in 2016 as an anti-Trump MSNBC regular, changed his voter registration from “no party affiliation” to Democrat in late April.
Republicans already have their campaign playbook against Jolly: He’s a “flip-flopping political relic” and “slick opportunist,” Florida Republican Party Chairman Evan Power wrote in a statement this week.
But Jolly says that’s exactly the message he expected and wants them to push.
“I hope they keep coming at that. It is the strength of our campaign that over 10 years, I have grown and changed and evolved,” he said in an interview with NOTUS this week.
The seat is a long shot for Democrats, who haven’t won a statewide election in Florida since current party chair Nikki Fried won agriculture commissioner in 2018. Democrats’ voter registration numbers have consistently dropped since. Republicans currently have 1.2 million more registered voters.
Jolly points to his background as an asset to the beleaguered Democratic party. His campaign announcement says his planned coalition will include “the faith community, gun owners, and school choice advocates.” Read: Republican-coded voters.
The fifth-generation Floridian was a two-term Republican congressman representing the Tampa area, and a centrist on the Hill, willing to criticize Donald Trump’s first presidential run on the House floor and draw the ire of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Jolly lost his third congressional race to the other famous Florida Republican-turned-Democrat: Charlie Crist. Jolly blames that loss, in part, on redistricting pulling in a new segment of Black voters and Democratic-leaning voters into the district.
“I could have not run, I mean that was a real decision for my wife and I after redistricting,” he said, but instead, “I spent six months in the Black churches, listening, not talking, but learning. Trying to build community and trust.”
A decade later, he looks at losing the race as a moment that demonstrated his ability to build coalitions — a necessity for Democrats to stand a chance of overcoming their voter registration disadvantage.
“It was a loss where I think my view of politics and public service was ultimately affirmed,” he said, pointing to his overperformance compared to other Republicans on the ticket. “I tried to give voice to everyone I represented, and I think that applies to this race.”
No other high-profile Democrat has jumped into what, by most accounts, looks like a losing race. Fried said in January she isn’t planning a run.
Former state Senate Minority Leader Jason Pizzo plans to run as an independent, a move that came after Jolly changed his party affiliation earlier this year. At the time, Pizzo called the Democratic party “dead.”
Jolly spent the last five years organizing independents and helped Andrew Yang found his centrist third party, the Forward Party. He acknowledged to NOTUS that his new alignment with Democrats is, in part, strategic because of “electoral rules” and campaign finance regulations that favor major parties.
“I was a disaffected partisan who loves the independent thought of being untethered from a major party, but looking to organize with a coalition that could win elections,” Jolly said. “The independent coalition, unfortunately, given the electoral rules, cannot win a statewide election in the state of Florida.”
On the Republican side, Trump has endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds. He’s the only high-profile Republican to enter the race so far. Florida first lady Casey DeSantis is also reportedly considering a run.
Jolly’s plan to combat either of them in a general election is to channel his political history — a Republican era, an independent era and a newly-launched Democratic era — into a pitch that he’s actually the one who’s been consistent on his values in the era of Trump.
Republicans “have changed and evolved certainly more than I have. Ask Republicans how they defend their evolution in the last 10 years. It’s one of the reasons I’m not part of the party,” Jolly said.
“I would ask — from the paid campaign hacks to the likes of Casey DeSantis and Byron Donalds and Donald Trump — have you not changed in the last 10 years? Because it’s clear to the rest of the world you really have.”
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Claire Heddles is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.