David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who left the party during President Trump’s first term, will run for Florida governor next year as a Democrat, his campaign announced on Thursday.
Mr. Jolly, 52, said he would frame his candidacy around the high cost of living in Florida, especially when it comes to paying for skyrocketing property insurance.
“The No. 1 issue in Florida right now is the affordability crisis,” he said in an interview. “It was largely created or ignored by Republicans in Tallahassee.”
Victory for any Democrat is especially challenging in Florida, which has become reliably Republican in recent elections. Republicans outnumber Democrats in voter registration numbers, and Democrats hold virtually no power in the State Capitol. The governor, Ron DeSantis, is a Republican, as are the state attorney general, chief financial officer and state agriculture commissioner. Republicans hold supermajorities in the State House and Senate.
Mr. Jolly argued that there was an opportunity for Democrats to capitalize on voter displeasure with the high cost of living and with Republican policies more broadly — if Democrats were to defend their values rather than to run away from them.
“This is a change environment,” he said. “Some party has to protect the marginalized and lift everybody up.”
Republicans cast Mr. Jolly, ahead of his expected announcement, as an opportunist with no natural political base. “No matter the issue, David Jolly has been on all sides of it,” Evan Power, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said in a statement this week. “Floridians won’t be swayed.”
Democrats tried nominating a former Republican, Charlie Crist, to challenge Mr. DeSantis in the 2022 election. Mr. Crist lost in a landslide. Mr. Jolly said that Republicans would have a harder time pinning him as a shape-shifter because he had spoken openly about his evolving politics.
“I changed my mind over some issues over the course of a decade,” he said, citing issues such as climate change and gun reform.
Mr. Jolly represented the St. Petersburg area in Congress from 2014 to 2017 and has been a longtime political commentator on MSNBC. After leaving the Republican Party, Mr. Jolly first dropped all party affiliation. He registered as a Democrat in April.
Mr. DeSantis, who is term-limited, has floated his wife, Casey DeSantis, as a possible successor. Ms. DeSantis has indicated that she would not rush to a decision; state prosecutors are investigating a charity tied to Hope Florida, a project that she started in 2021 to keep people off public assistance.
Another Republican, Representative Byron Donalds, has already won Mr. Trump’s endorsement for governor. State Senator Jason W.B. Pizzo, a former Democrat who left the party in dramatic fashion during a Senate floor speech in April, has said that he will run for governor as an independent.
Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico.
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