Jolly defends new Donalds attack ad that critics say plays angry Black man trope

In an election year marked by shifting party loyalties and unconventional alliances, David Jolly, the Democratic candidate for governor, said that he has no interest in courting voters who employ racist rhetoric or criticize his Republican opponent, Byron Donalds, because of his race.

“No, absolutely not. I want to be very clear about that,” Jolly said Wednesday at a Haitian American voter campaign event at Randy’s Restaurant and Lounge in North Miami.

Jolly’s remarks came shortly after his campaign began airing a new ad that political experts and some within his party argue is leaning into racial stereotypes about Black men. With less than a month remaining before the election, both campaigns are actively competing for Black voters. Jolly, who is white, faces the challenge of appealing to a broad electorate while avoiding actions that could alienate Black voters.

The short ad includes clips from a 2022 incident in Naples in which Collier County School Board Member Kelly Mason confronted Donalds at a restaurant. Donalds served on the board of Mason’s charter school, and his wife, Erika, also served on the Collier County School Board. The three fell out over disputes about the charter school’s management. The ad jumps from a clip of Donalds and Mason arguing to body camera footage showing an aid of Donalds, who is Black, appearing to angrily confront someone as Donalds looks on in the background.

Mason later sued Donalds alleging he aggressively cornered her, but ended up dropping the lawsuit. She voted for his far-right opponent in the GOP primary, James Fishback — a candidate who made racially charged comments about Donalds during the campaign.

“I know Byron and Erika Donalds well. He served on my charter school board,” Mason says in the new Jolly ad. “When they saw the money being made in charter school management, they wanted a piece of it. When I stood up, they tried intimidating me. They can’t. I am a DeSantis voter who is voting for David Jolly for governor.”

The ad leans into Jolly’s campaign to win over disenchanted Republicans. But for some Black Democrats watching the ad, it evokes a trope portraying Black men as angry, violent and unable to properly compose themselves.

In a social media interview with Mason after the ad aired, Chris Nelson, a Fishback supporter who ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Fort Lauderdale in 2024, described the interactions between Donalds and Mason as “O.J. Simpson yelling at Nicole Brown Simpson. You are lucky you survived.”

Stephen Hunter Johnson, a lawyer and member of Miami-Dade’s Black Affairs Advisory Board, said seeing the ad with the “stereotypical trope of the angry and savage Black man attacking a poor and defenseless white woman takes me back to some of the most terrible times in our history, particularly, it sort of echoes the ‘Birth of a Nation’ movie.”

Johnson, who is a Democrat and African American, said he had hoped that the political rhetoric and debate would be more civil and was disappointed to see the stereotypes reenforced by the ad. He said he did not think that “the party of Barack Obama and Hakeem Jeffries” would be the ones elevating such rhetoric to get into office.

“If you’re David Jolly, I suppose he entered the race to win the race. I just don’t necessarily know if this was the best way to go about it,” Johnson said.

“I don’t know that James Fishback’s former supporters are the best set of allies to go about it,” he said. “Courting those voters who are also explicitly anti-Black does seem to be a contradiction that I don’t know how he’s going to reconcile.”

Jolly, when asked if the ad plays on the racial tropes of the “angry Black man,” said Wednesday that the question should be directed to Donalds about “why he lost his temper and verbally assaulted a woman.”

“I don’t care about the race. I think what it demonstrated is that he is unfit. He’s unfit to be in business, and he’s unfit to be in government,” he said. “The question should be directed at Byron Donalds, who’s lost his temper and verbally assaulted a woman that he tried to steal a charter company from. That’s where that belongs.”

He has accused Donalds, 47, of advancing an anti-Black agenda. Jolly, 53, said Wednesday that he was unaware of Mason’s connection to Fishback.

“I know she supported Ron DeSantis, and she’s supporting us in this race,” he said.

‘A fairly desperate Hail Mary’

Nicholas Valentino, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan whose specializations include political advertising, said that when he watched the ad there was an undercurrent of racial salience in “the vulnerable white female standing up to the African American.” He said the Jolly campaign airing the ad could be seen as an attempt to lure in Republicans who might have “negative emotions triggered by that kind of imagery.”

“It’s a very basic trope that has played out historically in many different campaigns with that kind of symbolism,” Valentino said. “If you can trigger those powerful negative emotions, especially anxiety, by showing a threatening African American, especially if they’re threatening a white female, then you can peel off voters.”

Valentino said he usually sees such attacks with Republican candidates, but in this case, you have Jolly who was a former Republican now running as a Democrat, using it.

“It’s a fairly desperate Hail Mary kind of attack for a Democrat to use the angry Black male trope,” he said.

Jolly said he defended Donalds after several racist remarks from Fishback during the primary. Fishback referred to Donalds as a “tether,” a “slave,” and, when weighing in on Mason’s lawsuit, said the confrontation led Donalds to “chimp out.” Fishback told a Black man during a campaign-trail argument that he should be lynched.

“Of those comments in his primary, I condemned them, and you know who didn’t? Byron Donalds,” Jolly said. “I actually stood up for Byron. I did an interview, and I said ‘I got Byron’s back in this moment because I have the courage of my convictions to call out when I see rhetoric that doesn’t belong in the public square,’ and Byron Donalds shrinks from that.”

Jolly said Donalds “does not support the Black community,” an accusation that Donalds has rebuked.

Mason said she was not paid for the ad and chose to participate because she believes Floridians should be concerned about Byron and Erika Donalds’ actions over the years. She accused them of using the school choice movement to benefit their family financially. Mason described her participation as a way to raise awareness and “sound the alarm” for voters.

She said the Donalds ran a “deeply damaging campaign” against her, and it has taken years for her to recover. The ad, Mason added, had nothing to do with Fishback, who she said was “falsely accused of being a racist and anti-Semite.”

“I actually also had the privilege and honor to get to know him personally. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. It’s so easy to go there,” said Mason. “And if someone can point to something he said that’s actually racist or anti-Semit[ic] you know, show me. But I’ve never seen it.” Mason said there is “absolutely” nothing racist about the ad.

Gates McGavick, spokesperson for the Donalds campaign, said Mason “had filed multiple frivolous, dismissed lawsuits against Byron and Erika. The most recent one came on the eve of the primary and was dismissed with prejudice.”

“Dave’s flailing campaign has turned to full on ambulance-chasing. Desperate,” he said in response to the Jolly ad.

Closing the Black voter gap

Jolly and Donalds have been making concerted efforts to win over Black voters. A recent shows Jolly leading with Black voters 76% to Donalds’ 10%. Jolly said his campaign is working hard before Nov. 3 to win over more of the Black voting bloc.

“Look, to be a former Republican, yes, a white candidate for governor drawing 80% of the black vote, I’m pretty proud of that,” he said. “We got to close the gap and push that closer to 90.”

He said Donalds “drawing 9 to 10% is probably of greater concern than us pulling 80% right now.”

For his part, Donalds has also been trying to appeal to Black voters, he has met with some Haitian-American community leaders and recently did an event at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.

The Mason-Dixon poll showed that 14% of Black voters were undecided and Jolly thinks the race will be decided by these voters.

On Thursday at Federica Wilson’s annual Black voter event in Miami Gardens, Jolly pitched his campaign’s pillars of affordability, healthcare and education, which he says are important issues for Floridians, who are experiencing an “economic crisis.”

“We know there’s been an attack on investments in minority-owned businesses and access to capital, an attack on our education, the whitewashing of history, the attack on diversity,” he said.

Jolly also accused Donalds of voting against voting-rights protections and investments in Black communities. He said that he understood the significance of Donalds potential to become Florida’s first Black governor and would not challenge voters reaching for that milestone.

“For voters who want to reach for history and elect the first Black governor, I’m not going to argue with that. That’s not a case for me to make,” he said. “What I will stand by is that my agenda lifts up every community, including the Black community, and Byron Donald’s doesn’t.”

Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Staff Writer Claire Heddles and Miami Herald Staff Writer Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report.