October polls of Florida’s governor race show Donalds ahead of or tied with Jolly; none of the published results names the six other ballot candidates

Two public polls of Florida’s governor race released Oct. 19, 2026, show Republican Byron Donalds ahead of Democrat David Jolly. Univision/YouGov had Donalds up 50% to 42% among registered voters; ActiVote had him up 51.7% to 48.3% among likely voters.¹²³

SignalData found 11 polls of the race released or reported in October. Donalds led or the two were tied in each. None of the published results names any of the other six candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot; for several polls, the question wording was not available.

Who is on the ballot

The Division of Elections lists eight qualified candidates for governor and two qualified write-in candidates:⁴

• Dean Abrams, no party affiliation
• Charles Burkett, no party affiliation
• Jeffrey Datto, no party affiliation
• Moe Dimanche, no party affiliation
• Byron Donalds, Republican
• Scott Jewett, Libertarian Party of Florida
• David Jolly, Democrat
• Frank Russo, no party affiliation
• Write-in: Kathy Anderson and Erik Morris

The Division’s 2026 general election candidate list, searched at all statuses, has no record for Jason Pizzo.⁴

The polls, newest first

• Univision/YouGov (Oct. 19): Oct. 2-15; 825 registered voters, online; ±4 points. Donalds 50%, Jolly 42%, other candidate 1%, undecided 7%.²¹
• ActiVote (Oct. 19): Oct. 1-19; 400 likely voters; average expected error 4.9 points. Donalds 51.7%, Jolly 48.3%.³
• MDW Communications and EDGE Communications (Oct. 14): Oct. 4-10; 2,351 likely voters, online; ±2.8 points. Donalds 45.9%, Jolly 43.8%, undecided 10.3%.⁵
• Fabrizio, Lee & Associates (Oct. 13), a Donalds campaign internal poll: Florida Politics reported Donalds 49%, Jolly 43% head to head, and 46% to 39% in a version listing the whole field. The campaign did not release the full poll.⁶
• Stetson University (Oct. 13, Newsweek reported): Oct. 1-9; modeled likely voters, online; estimated precision ±4.2 points. Donalds 52%, Jolly 41%, another candidate 3%, undecided 5%.⁷
• Change Research (Oct. 12): Oct. 8-10; likely voters; ±3.1 points. Donalds 47%, Jolly 47%, undecided 5%, Newsweek reported.⁸⁷
• St. Pete Polls for Florida Politics (Oct. 7): Oct. 5-7; 836 likely voters; ±3.4 points. Donalds 44.7%, Jolly 44.6%, someone else 3.9%, undecided 6.9%.⁹
• Targoz Market Research for the James Madison Institute (dated Oct. 6): Sept. 28-Oct. 4; 1,200 registered voters; ±2.77 points. Donalds 48%, Jolly 39%, another candidate 5%, undecided 8%.¹⁰
• YouGov (Oct. 6): Sept. 28-Oct. 5; 3,813 likely voters, online; ±2.7 points. Donalds 47%, Jolly 45%, someone else 1%, undecided 7%, will not vote 1%.¹¹¹²
• Mason-Dixon for NBC6 and Telemundo Station Group (Oct. 6): Sept. 28-Oct. 1; 625 registered voters who said they were likely to vote; ±4 points. Donalds 48%, Jolly 41%, other 1%, undecided 10%.¹³¹⁴
• Mason-Dixon for Telemundo Station Group, Hispanic voters (Oct. 6): Sept. 28-Oct. 1; 400 registered Hispanic voters likely to vote; ±5 points. Donalds 48%, Jolly 43%, someone else 1%, undecided 8%, CBS12 and Telemundo 51 reported.¹²¹⁵

Candidates outside the two major parties

Abrams, Burkett, Datto, Dimanche, Jewett and Russo do not appear by name in any question or result SignalData could read. Mason-Dixon’s statewide question listed only the Jolly-Gwen Graham and Donalds-Bryan Avila tickets, and St. Pete Polls named only Donalds and Jolly.¹³⁹ The James Madison Institute and YouGov questions offered a generic “another candidate” or “someone else”; Univision’s tables show an “other candidate” category but not the question.¹⁰¹¹² MDW and ActiVote published only Donalds and Jolly results.⁵³ Florida Politics reported a whole-field result for the Fabrizio poll but did not list the candidates offered or their shares.⁶ Question wording was not available to SignalData for the Stetson, Change Research and Mason-Dixon Hispanic polls; the reports on them name only Donalds and Jolly.⁷¹²¹⁵

What the records do not show

• Stetson’s and Change Research’s own releases could not be opened; their sample sizes and sponsors are not confirmed.
• Florida Politics did not report the Fabrizio poll’s field dates, sample or question wording.
• None of the published results reviewed says which candidate, if any, “someone else” respondents meant.