Lt. Gov. Jay Collins has yet to release his first fundraising report, but comments from a podcast released this week suggest that observers shouldn’t expect much from it.
“I’m not going to lie to you. Fundraising’s tough. You know, the lobby corps is behind Byron Donalds. They don’t want the people to choose. They want to choose, and they are putting all the money behind him. The big donors are very afraid.”
Collins, a former Senator from Tampa who was appointed to the job by Gov. Ron DeSantis, has his work cut out for him. Donalds is setting fundraising records for gubernatorial races in the state.
Donalds, a Naples Republican endorsed by President Donald Trump, raked in $22.2 million in the first quarter of 2026, pushing his total fundraising north of $67 million.
For his part, Collins would “love” for Trump to endorse him, and said “there’s a great chance that our Governor” ends up backing him “in time, if we keep moving forward.”
It’s uncertain how much time or forward motion would be needed.
Despite being asked multiple times this year if and when he would back the man he once called the Chuck Norris of Florida politics, DeSantis has not moved toward an actual endorsement.
“I think everybody knows that when I’ve got something on my mind that … I wanted people to know, that people know. So we’re not going to be shy about anything about what we’re doing. If I feel the need to do something, I do it,” he said in Collins’ hometown Monday.
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