Florida Governor's Race on Election Eve: Market Traders Put Donalds at 61% and Jolly at 39%, While the Polling Average Shows a Five-Point Race
Kalshi's Florida governor market on November 2 prices Byron Donalds at 61% and David Jolly at 39% - down 31 points from the 92% traders gave Republicans in October 2025 - while the polling averages displayed on the same page show Donalds 48.1% to Jolly 43.4%. A market price is not a poll, and this story keeps the two separate.
On the last full day before Florida chooses its next governor, the prediction market and the polls are telling related but different stories. As of November 2, Kalshi's Florida governor market displays Byron Donalds, the Republican, at 61% and David Jolly, the Democrat, at 39% to win Tuesday's election, Kalshi's news page reported in a file opened and read directly by the desk this run. That 61% figure is a 31-percentage-point decline from October 17, 2025, when traders gave Republicans a 92% chance of winning the governorship.
The polling averages displayed on the same page are tighter: Donalds 48.1% and Jolly 43.4%, a five-point advantage. The page itself stresses the distinction this story keeps: the polling figures represent reported voter support, while the 61% and 39% figures represent market prices. A separate margin-of-victory market on the page forecasts approximately Republicans +2.3 points, with a 47% chance priced for Donalds to win by at least three points.
The stakes are the ones Florida voters know: the winner succeeds term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis and takes office in January 2027, setting the state's executive priorities for four years. President Donald Trump and DeSantis have supported Donalds, while former President Barack Obama has endorsed Jolly, the page reported; the candidates' disagreements include property insurance and affordability, and Jolly's proposal for a state-backed catastrophe fund, which Donalds has criticized while supporting changes to the existing Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund instead.
A Democratic win would be the party's first in a Florida governor's race since 1994, the page noted. The desk's own final-poll file (SQ-20261102-004) put Donalds ahead by two to four points in the last surveys; today's market file is a different instrument measuring a different thing, and it is labeled that way here. Neither a market price nor a polling average casts a ballot - Duval County votes Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
