{"id":144379,"date":"2026-09-05T21:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T21:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/144379\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T21:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T21:27:09","slug":"cynthia-chestnut-says-gwen-graham-lg-pick-drove-her-endorsement-of-byron-donalds-over-david-jolly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/144379\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia Chestnut says Gwen Graham LG pick drove her endorsement of Byron Donalds over David Jolly"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the end, was it\u00a0Gwen Graham\u2019s fault?<\/p>\n

Or was it a function of a statewide party that takes Black voters for granted, marginalizing Black candidates and political consultants along the way?<\/p>\n

Gainesville City Commissioner\u00a0Cynthia Chestnut<\/a> donated thrice to\u00a0David Jolly<\/a> ahead of the Democratic Primary for Governor, so it surprised many when she endorsed his Republican opponent\u00a0Byron Donalds<\/a> in the race for Governor.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s entirely possible that the endorsement means more than just one person flipping the script in the end.<\/p>\n

During a Livestream<\/a> Friday, the one-time candidate to be chair of the Florida Democratic Party<\/a> and mentor to former Democratic nominee\u00a0Andrew Gillum<\/a> offered context for her decision to cross party lines, saying it was because Jolly chose to have an \u201call-white ticket\u201d rather than choosing a running mate from an ethnic minority.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to him the day after he made that decision and shared with him why I was concerned,\u201d Chestnut said on the Good News Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to him, \u2018You had the opportunity to select a Black woman, a Black man, a Hispanic man, or a Hispanic woman, and you chose to go backward, not forward. Going with a Black candidate or a Hispanic candidate would have done very much to pull the state together, to pull the voting patterns together. We need to be able to reach out and recapture the votes of Black males. We need to be able to recapture the votes of Hispanics, so an all-white ticket, I don\u2019t think, will achieve that goal.\u2019 It needed some diversity, and he did not afford himself of that opportunity to reach out and to select someone, in my opinion, who could bring great value to the ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillum and Graham were rivals in the 2018 race for Governor, as longtime Floridians will recall. Graham, a political legacy, was seen as the odds on favorite for the nomination before the former Tallahassee Mayor\u2019s stretch run surge led to a stunning upset.<\/p>\n

Chestnut claims Jolly told her he\u2019d reached out to Black leaders in the Legislature to see if they wanted to run with him, but she discounted that as a good faith attempt to balance the ticket.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Black person was going to leave that position for a gamble,\u201d she related.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Chestnut said Jolly froze her out after the disagreement over the LG selection, and that neither the Florida Democratic Party nor Jolly reached out to her after the Donalds endorsement.<\/p>\n

When asked about Democrats disparaging her after her cross-party endorsement, she said her vote was her vote and that she was impressed with Donalds in conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe listened,\u201d Chestnut said. \u201cMr. Jolly never asked my opinion on issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her belief is that Jolly operated from a \u201cstereotype\u201d that Black voters reflexively support Democrats.<\/p>\n

That same stereotypical view is shared by the Florida Democratic Party at large, Chestnut argued, with the presumption that Black votes are the \u201cproperty\u201d of the party and don\u2019t need to be earned.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could look at the leadership of the Florida Democratic Party now. When campaigns are underway, Black political consultants are not hired. They call in political consultants from Washington to come in and try to learn Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black candidates are also deprived of Democratic resources until voting by mail has already begun, Chestnut claimed, providing another example of inequity and a structural hurdle white candidates don\u2019t encounter.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack campaigns are given money just about the last four weeks of a campaign. It\u2019s not given the whole time that you\u2019re developing your strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chestnut doesn\u2019t know if she will campaign with Donalds, and stressed that backing the Republican candidate for Governor does not mean she will become a Republican, and that she does not support President\u00a0Donald Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the end, was it\u00a0Gwen Graham\u2019s fault? Or was it a function of a statewide party that takes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[73225,43414,73226,27055,27057,315,314,73227],"class_list":["post-144379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lg","tag-andrew-gillum","tag-byron-donalds","tag-cynthia-chestnut","tag-david-jolly","tag-gwen-graham","tag-lg","tag-lg-group","tag-the-good-news-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}