Byron Donalds

Byron Donalds is an American congressman, representing southwest Florida, and is widely considered a rising star in the Republican Party. One of the country’s top Black Republicans, Donalds was on the short list to be Donald Trump’s running mate in 2024 and is running to be governor of Florida in 2026.

Early years

Donalds and his two sisters were raised by their single mother in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. In a 2020 interview with the News-Press of Naples, Florida, he described his childhood as difficult. “We were poor. My mom lost her job with the city of New York when I was in middle school, so we struggled.” His grandmother helped pay the tuition to send him to a Catholic high school, but even with family support, he ran afoul of the law as a young man. In 1997 Donalds was arrested for possession of marijuana; the charge was dismissed in a pretrial diversion program. Later he was arrested for bribery, a charge that was subsequently expunged. After graduating from Florida State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance and marketing, he worked in a number of banking and insurance positions before becoming involved with the Tea Party movement in 2010 and embarking on a career in politics.

Congress

After running unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, Donalds was elected to the Florida state legislature four years later. In 2020 he won a congressional seat in the 19th district, running as an ally of Trump, who was seeking reelection. After Trump lost to Joe Biden, Donalds was one of 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying Biden’s victory. In 2023, when Vanity Fair asked him whether Biden was the legitimate president, Donalds replied, “I mean, me, personally? No.”

Donalds’s policy positions are rooted in traditional Republican politics. He opposes Green New Deal climate legislation and describes himself as a “gun-owning…pro-life, politically incorrect Black man.”

In January 2023 hard-line Republicans, opposed to then Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, backed Donalds for the post. But it also stoked criticism from some on the left, including Rep. Cori Bush, a Black Missouri Democrat, who posted on X that Donalds “is not a historic candidate for Speaker. He is a prop. Despite being Black, he supports a policy agenda intent on upholding and perpetuating white supremacy.”

Donalds replied in his own post on X: “If you see a Black man rise, let the man rise even if you disagree with them. I’d be happy to sit down and debate our policies one on one whenever you’d like. As a Black man to a Black woman, I’d never do that to you. It’s a shame you did it to me.”

In 2024 Donalds generated a firestorm by suggesting that Black families had been stronger during the Jim Crow era, when African Americans faced state-sanctioned discrimination in the South. “You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together,” he said during a Trump campaign event in Philadelphia. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative—because Black people have always been conservative minded—but more Black people voted conservatively. And then HEW, [Pres.] Lyndon Johnson—you go down that road, and now we are where we are.” HEW refers to the former U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which was charged with carrying out the anti-poverty policies enacted during the Johnson administration.

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, expressed outrage at the comment in a speech on the House floor. “It has come to my attention that a so-called leader has made the factually inaccurate statement that Black folks were better off during Jim Crow,” said Jeffries, who is also Black. “That’s an outlandish, outrageous, and out-of-pocket observation.…How dare you make such an ignorant observation?” Donalds said later that his comments had been taken out of context.

After Trump’s May 2024 felony conviction in a hush money case in New York, Donalds called on the U.S. Supreme Court to take up an appeal, arguing that Trump had been prosecuted because of politics. “This is being done for political purposes,” Donalds said. “Everybody knows how the court system works in New York.…That’s why what happened in lower Manhattan was to interfere with an election.”

Future in the GOP

In February 2025 Donalds announced he would run for governor of Florida; he has been enthusiastically endorsed by Trump. Because of term limits, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cannot seek reelection, although he touted his wife, Casey DeSantis, as a possible successor. Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who withdrew as Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney general, said he is contemplating a run for Florida governor. If Donalds is elected, he would be the first elected Black Republican governor in U.S. history. Three Black men (all Democrats) have been elected governors of their states: Douglas Wilder of Virginia, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, and Wes Moore of Maryland.

Along with U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who ran for president briefly in the 2024 cycle, Donalds is considered one of the most prominent Black Republicans in U.S. politics. Scott is the only Black Republican currently serving in the U.S. Senate. In the House, Donalds has three Black GOP colleagues: Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah, Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas, and Rep. John James of Michigan.