Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who is running as a Republican for Florida governor, unleashed criticism against the GOP front-runner, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, at a news conference Monday.
Collins said Donalds has “flip-flopped on the issues like a fish out of water.” His campaign handed out a 13-page list of attacks against Donalds that singled out past associates, stock trades, votes in Congress and other issues.
He also said he thinks Donalds would lose the election to former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, the Democrat who has raised the most money in the race.
A poll released last week by MDW Communications and Edge Communications, two consulting firms that work with Democrats, showed Donalds leading Jolly by less than a percentage point, with 18% of respondents undecided. The poll did not examine a match-up between Collins and Jolly.
Another recent poll from Emerson College, conducted in late March, found Donalds leading the two Democratic front-runners for governor, Jolly and Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, by five points and nine points, respectively.
Donalds’ campaign dismissed Collins’ attack.
“Failing campaigns stop talking about issues and start attacking the frontrunner,” said Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Donalds’ campaign. “President Trump’s endorsed candidate, Byron Donalds, is the conservative fighter who will unite our party and defeat the Democrats and every desperate candidate doing their dirty work.”
Collins’ salvo comes as his campaign has struggled to gain traction in the GOP gubernatorial primary. He raised about $2 million in the first quarter of 2026 after declaring in January; he has spent a third of that on polls and consulting. Donalds raised $22 million during the same span — more than all of his opponents combined.
Donalds has held consistent leads in GOP primary polls, according to a summary compiled by The New York Times, while Collins has struggled to surpass single digits in most polls.
Collins worked Monday to fend off rumors that he might drop out of the race after his campaign backed out of two events last week.
“We are not suspending our campaign,” he said at the beginning of his remarks.
“The pundits will tell you it’s an uphill fight. Good. Nothing good in life is easy,” he added later.
Collins also said Monday that he was launching a seven-figure statewide media campaign “to tell our story.”
Collins criticized Donalds’ ties to Larry Wilcoxson, a former senior political adviser and substitute teacher who was charged in 2006 with three counts of child molestation. He was never convicted.
Donalds’ campaign previously told the Tampa Bay Times that Wilcoxson is not a part of the 2026 team. But the research website OpenSecrets shows Donalds paid Wilcoxson about $134,000 during the 2024 cycle — well after Wilcoxson’s past actions surfaced in news reports.
Collins also referenced a 2024 Business Insider article that said Donalds failed to properly disclose up to $1.6 million in congressional stock trades. At the time, a spokesperson for Donalds told Business Insider that the congressman was “working to reconcile any outstanding infractions and follow all necessary procedure to ensure proper compliance.”
Alvarez, the Donalds campaign’s spokesperson, said Monday that the congressman and his wife, Erika, “do not control, execute or direct any stock trades,” instead giving trading authority to third-party professionals. All of Donalds’ stock trades “have been reported through proper channels,” she said.
Reached by phone Monday, Jolly said he doesn’t have a preference for who Republicans nominate in the governor’s race.
“I want the one with the least amount of money,” he said.
