Florida Democrats are turning to former President Bill Clinton for a late campaign push with David Jolly as they try to end a decades-long drought in the governor's mansion.
Breitbart News reported that Clinton is scheduled to appear alongside gubernatorial nominee David Jolly at an evening interfaith event in Hollywood on Tuesday, October 20, two weeks before Election Day on November 3.
Jolly’s campaign says the stop will mark Clinton’s first public campaign appearance of the 2026 midterms. The timing lands as early voting begins in parts of Florida, and as Democrats again chase a prize they have not held in a generation.
Jolly, a former Republican congressman who won the Democratic nomination in August, faces Republican Rep. Byron Donalds in the race to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis. The last Democrat elected governor of Florida was Lawton Chiles, who won reelection in 1994.
That three-decade gap is the real backdrop for the Hollywood event. Party leaders are flying in a former president because the bench and the brand have not closed the deal on their own.
A Stetson University poll released Tuesday showed Donalds ahead of Jolly by 11 points, 52% to 41%, among modeled likely voters. A YouGov survey released last week had Donalds up 47% to 45%. An earlier St. Pete Polls survey conducted October 5, 7 put the candidates at 45% each.
The Cook Political Report moved the contest from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” earlier this month. Even that shift still leaves Donalds in the stronger position heading into the final stretch.
Donalds also holds a substantial financial advantage over Jolly. In a state this large, airtime and turnout operations are not abstract. They decide who defines the race when voters are already casting ballots.
Just The News noted that Clinton’s stop is built around a joint interfaith event with Jolly in Hollywood as the former Republican-turned-Democratic nominee tries to keep pace against Donalds in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Clinton’s Florida work is not limited to Jolly. Earlier this week he headlined a New York fundraiser with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for Rep. Jared Moskowitz, the Florida Democrat seeking reelection in a newly drawn district rated a toss-up after DeSantis-backed congressional remapping altered his previous seat.
That is the pattern: national names, outside money, and late surrogates pressed into service where the local Democratic bench has struggled to break through. It is also why Bill Clinton’s enduring draw still matters to a party short on fresh statewide winners in Florida.
Clinton made similar late appearances in prior cycles. During the 2022 midterms he campaigned in New York, New Jersey, and South Texas in the closing days. In 2024 he made dozens of campaign stops across battleground states for then-Vice President Kamala Harris while also backing candidates further down the ballot.
Democrats are reaching for that same closer’s reputation again. Whether Florida voters still respond to it is another question.
Fox News reported that Clinton’s October 20 appearance for Jolly is his first public campaign stop of the 2026 cycle, coming as the party’s older leadership faces fresh questions about remaining pull with voters.
Democratic strategist Kevin Walling still sells the former president as a rare talent on kitchen-table issues.
"[President Clinton] remains one of the most gifted political communicators this country has ever known, particularly when it comes to connecting with working-class voters on the economic issues that matter most."
That is the case Democrats want voters to hear in Hollywood. The counter-case is simpler: Florida has not elected a Democratic governor since the mid-1990s, the current polls still lean Republican, and the Democratic nominee is a recent party-switcher chasing a better-funded Republican congressman.
Clinton’s recent public profile has mixed the nostalgia act with sharper political fights, including moments when Clinton lectured Trump while his own record drew new scrutiny. Surrogate politics always invites that comparison.
Jolly’s path runs through independents and soft Republicans who once knew him as a GOP member of Congress. Clinton’s job is to turn out Democrats and persuade enough swing voters that a familiar national brand can paper over a long statewide losing streak.
Party officials are treating the final two weeks as a full mobilization. The New York fundraiser for Moskowitz and the Hollywood interfaith event with Jolly are pieces of the same late push: raise cash, borrow star power, and hope turnout math bends.
Clinton has spent decades as a closer for Democratic tickets. He has also become a standing reminder of how long the party has leaned on the same circle of national figures. Coverage of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s high-profile circuit only sharpens that contrast for voters tired of recycled headliners.
Chiles won in 1994. Every Democratic governor bid since has failed. That record is why a October campaign stop by a former president becomes national news instead of a routine rally.
Donalds enters the closing stretch with the clearer polling edge and the stronger war chest. Jolly enters it with a famous surrogate and a party desperate to prove Florida statewide races are competitive again.
Clinton can still draw a crowd and fill a room. Filling a generation-long gap in the Florida governor’s office is a harder assignment, and the public record of Clinton’s own mixed messaging gives Republicans plenty of material if the race tightens into a brawl over trust and consistency.
Election Day is November 3. Early voting is already underway in parts of the state. The Hollywood event is Democrats’ bid to change the trajectory before ballots harden.
A party that needs a 1990s president to rescue a converted Republican in a Lean Republican state is not projecting strength. It is projecting need.