By William March
Byron Donalds, who cruised to an easy victory in the Republican primary for governor with the endorsement of Donald Trump, has maintained two separate campaigns – one for the governorship and one for re-election to his U.S. House seat – during almost his entire campaign for governor.
Despite a warning from federal election authorities that he was skirting campaign finance laws, Donalds continued to raise and spend money for more than 18 months in a campaign for re-election to his U.S. House seat.
Since the start of 2025, Donalds’ campaign for his House seat has taken in $738,092, and spent more than $2.1 million – most of it since he declared on Feb. 26, 2025 that he was running for governor and not running for House re-election.
The biggest chunk of that spending was taking $1.2 million he had raised to run for re-election to Congress and passing it to a political action committee, Friends of Byron Donalds, backing his run for governor.
But his campaign for re-election to the House has also taken in $30,000 from PACs, spent $136,561.47 for “security services” and paid $36,000 to a polling and research firm, all since he announced he was not actually running for the House.
Donalds is the U.S. House representative from Florida’s District 19 in southwest Florida, encompassing coastal areas from Fort Myers to Naples.
Six months after he initially announced in February 2025 that he was running for governor and not for re-election to Congress, the Federal Elections Commission warned Donalds that he should stop accepting contributions to his House campaign and refund those donations he had accepted since his announcement.
In response, the Donalds campaign told the FEC that he was still in fact “an active candidate” for House re-election.
It wasn’t until earlier this month, on Aug. 5, that Donalds’ House re-election campaign told the FEC it would stop raising and spending money and declared – for the second time – that he was not a House candidate.
The timeline:
Feb. 25, 2025 – Donalds notifies the FEC that he is not running for re-election to the House, saying he “is not seeking re-election and will not be conducting any further activities with respect to the 2026 primary election.”
Feb. 26, 2025 – Donalds files as a candidate for governor of Florida and immediately transfers $1.2 million from his House campaign to Friends of Byron Donalds.
July 15, 2025 – Despite having declared he was no longer a House candidate, Donalds files a campaign finance report with the FEC showing his House campaign raised $74,693.49 and spent $146,084 in the previous three months.
Aug. 5, 2025 – An FEC official tells the Donalds campaign that because he is no longer a House candidate, its contributions received since his February announcement “must be refunded” except the amount used to pay off debts.
Aug. 6, 2025 – Donalds campaign treasurer Bradley Crate responds to the FEC with a letter saying Donalds “has not officially ended his Congressional re-election campaign and he has made no announcement to that effect,” and “is still an active candidate for the 2025-2026 Election Cycle.”
June 6, 2026 – Donalds files qualifying papers for governor of Florida.
Aug. 8 – Crate sends a letter to the FEC saying Donalds is not running for re-election to the House after all.
The Donalds campaign didn’t respond to an inquiry from the Florida Trident with questions about his contradictory statements on whether he was running for re-election to Congress and why his House campaign continued spending on items such as polling and security services.
FEC reports show Donalds has refunded some donations to his House campaign, but far from all that he raised since initially declaring he was no longer a House candidate.
The Trident initially reported in September 2025 about Donalds’ dual campaigns.
At that time, Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, told the Trident that any enforcement action by the FEC was unlikely, regardless of whether the campaign violated campaign finance regulations.
Only two of the six seats on the commission that governs the FEC are filled, and the six-member commission hasn’t had a quorum since May 2025. That means the commission cannot “resolve enforcement and audit matters, implement rules, issue advisory opinions, and litigate most cases,” according to a statement in May by Commission Chair Shana Broussard.
The bipartisan FEC members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Jeff Swartz, professor emeritus at Cooley Law School in Tampa, speculated that Donalds may have kept his House campaign open as a way of “keeping his powder dry” – preserving the option to run for House re-election in case another strong candidate emerged for governor.
William March has written about politics in the Tampa Bay area for the past 40 years. He has worked for newspapers in his native North Carolina and for the Tampa Tribune, the Tampa Bay Times and the Associated Press in Florida. Trident Staff Writer Melanie Payne contributed to this report.
The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability in the wake of shrinking newsroom budgets and staff across the country. This article is published with the Trident’s permission. To support the Trident’s work, click here:
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J.C. Bruce
This is flat out illegal!
Can a House member in Florida legally run for reelection and also run for governor at the same time? No, a House member in Florida cannot legally run for reelection and run for governor at the same time. Under Section 99.012 of the Florida Statutes, also known as the state's "Resign-to-Run" law, an elected or appointed official is strictly prohibited from qualifying as a candidate for another public office if the terms (or any part of the terms) overlap. Because the term for a member of the Florida House of Representatives or the U.S. House of Representatives would directly overlap with the incoming governor's term, simultaneous candidacies are illegal.
Just another one of trumps educated stooges it sounds like