Florida Democrats are calling on Bill Clinton to boost David Jolly’s late push for governor as the party seeks its first win since 1994.
Former President Bill Clinton is set to appear alongside Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Jolly at an evening interfaith event in Hollywood on Tuesday, October 20, as early voting opens in parts of the state and Election Day approaches on November 3.
Jolly’s campaign says the stop will mark Clinton’s first public campaign appearance of the 2026 midterms, giving the former Republican congressman a high-profile surrogate in the closing stretch against Republican Rep. Byron Donalds.
Breitbart News reported the visit as part of Democrats’ late push for votes in a Florida governor’s race the party has failed to win for decades.
Jolly won the Democratic nomination in August and is running to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis.
He faces Donalds, who holds a substantial financial advantage and leads in several recent surveys.
A Stetson University poll released Tuesday showed Donalds ahead of Jolly by 11 points, 52 percent to 41 percent, among modeled likely voters.
A YouGov survey released last week had Donalds up 47 percent to 45 percent. St. Pete Polls, in a survey conducted October 5, 7, found the candidates tied at 45 percent each.
The Cook Political Report earlier this month moved the contest from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.”
Democrats have not elected a Florida governor since Lawton Chiles won reelection in 1994. That drought frames the stakes of Jolly’s bid and the decision to bring Clinton in now.
The Hollywood event is timed for the final two weeks before voters cast ballots statewide.
Clinton has made similar late appearances before. In the 2022 midterms he campaigned in the closing days in New York, New Jersey, and South Texas. In 2024 he logged dozens of stops across battleground states for then-Vice President Kamala Harris and down-ballot candidates.
This Florida visit fits that pattern: a familiar national figure dropped into a state where Democrats need turnout and attention they have struggled to generate at the top of the ticket.
Jolly’s own path adds another layer. He is a former Republican congressman now carrying the Democratic banner. Party leaders are treating the race as competitive enough to justify a former president’s time, even as Donalds maintains polling and fundraising edges.
Earlier this week Clinton headlined a New York fundraiser with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for Rep. Jared Moskowitz, the Florida Democrat seeking reelection.
Moskowitz is running in a newly drawn district rated a toss-up after a DeSantis-backed congressional remapping changed his previous seat.
The back-to-back appearances show national Democrats deploying Clinton for both the governor’s race and at least one vulnerable House seat in the same cycle window.
Florida’s governor’s mansion has been out of Democratic hands since the mid-1990s. Jolly is the latest nominee asked to break that streak.
Donalds enters the final stretch with money and, in multiple polls, a lead. The Cook shift to “Lean Republican” still leaves the race short of a pure toss-up rating.
Clinton’s Hollywood stop gives Jolly a recognizable draw as early voting begins. It does not change the structural facts on the ground: a party that has lost this office for a generation, a nominee who switched parties, and a Republican opponent who holds clear resource and polling advantages in several surveys.
Democrats are spending scarce late-cycle capital on a former president in a state that has repeatedly rejected their gubernatorial candidates. The record since 1994 explains why they feel the need. It also explains why one celebrity surrogate may not be enough.
