U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who cruised to an easy victory in the Republican primary for governor, has maintained two campaigns — one for the state's top job and another for reelection to the House — during almost his entire gubernatorial run.
Despite a warning from federal election authorities that he was skirting campaign finance laws, Donalds has continued to raise and spend money for more than 18 months in a campaign for reelection.
Since the start of 2025, Donalds' campaign for his House seat has taken in $738,092, and spent more than $2.1 million — most of it since he declared on Feb. 26, 2025, that he was running for governor and not running for House reelection.
The biggest chunk of that spending was taking $1.2 million he had raised to run for reelection and passing it to a political action committee, Friends of Byron Donalds, backing his run for governor.
But his campaign for reelection has also taken in $30,000 from PACs, spent $136,561.47 for "security services" and paid $36,000 to a polling and research firm, all since he announced he was not actually running for the House.
Donalds, whose gubernatorial run has received the endorsement of President Donald Trump, is the U.S. representative from District 19 in Southwest Florida, encompassing coastal areas from Fort Myers to Naples.
Six months after he initially announced in February 2025 that he was running for governor, the Federal Elections Commission warned Donalds that he should stop accepting contributions to his House campaign and refund donations he had accepted.
In response, the Donalds campaign told the FEC that he was still "an active candidate" for the House.
It wasn't until Aug. 5 that Donalds' reelection campaign told the FEC it would stop raising and spending money and declared — for the second time — that he was not a House candidate.
The timeline:
- Feb. 25, 2025 – Donalds notifies the FEC that he is not running for re-election to the House,https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/728/202608059899352728/202608059899352728.pdfsaying he "is not seeking re-election and will not be conducting any further activities with respect to the 2026 primary election."
- Feb. 26, 2025 – Donalds files as a candidate for governor of Florida and immediately transfers $1.2 million from his House campaign to Friends of Byron Donalds.
- July 15, 2025 – Despite having declared he was no longer a House candidate, Donalds files a campaign finance report with the FEC showing his House campaign raised $74,693.49 and spent $146,084 in the previous three months.
- Aug. 5, 2025 – An FEC official tells the Donalds campaign that because he is no longer a House candidate, its contributions received since his February announcement "must be refunded" except the amount used to pay off debts.
- Aug. 6, 2025 – Donalds campaign treasurer Bradley Crate responds to the FEC with a letter saying Donalds "has not officially ended his Congressional re-election campaign and he has made no announcement to that effect," and "is still an active candidate for the 2025-2026 Election Cycle."
- June 6, 2026 – Donalds files qualifying papers for governor of Florida.
- Aug. 8 – Crate sends a letter to the FEC saying Donalds is not running for re-election to the House after all.
The Donalds campaign didn't respond to an inquiry from the Florida Trident with questions about his contradictory statements on whether he was running for reelection and why his House campaign continued spending on items such as polling and security services.
FEC reports show Donalds has refunded some donations to his House campaign, but far from all that he raised since initially declaring he was no longer a House candidate.
The Trident initially reported in September 2025 about Donalds' dual campaigns.
At that time, Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, told the Trident that any enforcement action by the FEC was unlikely, regardless of whether the campaign violated campaign finance regulations.
Only two of the six seats on the commission that governs the FEC are filled, and the six-member commission hasn't had a quorum since May 2025. That means the commission cannot "resolve enforcement and audit matters, implement rules, issue advisory opinions, and litigate most cases," according to a statement in May by Commission Chair Shana Broussard.
The bipartisan FEC members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Jeff Swartz, professor emeritus at Cooley Law School in Tampa, speculated that Donalds may have kept his House campaign open as a way of "keeping his powder dry" — preserving the option to run for reelection in case another strong candidate emerged for governor.
Trident staff writer Melanie Payne contributed to this report.
This article first appeared on Florida Trident and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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