Florida’s 2026 governor’s race is shaping up to be a referendum on homeowner costs — and property taxes are sitting squarely at the center of it. With Republican Congressman Byron Donalds officially in the race and former Republican-turned-independent David Jolly positioning himself as the alternative, Florida property owners now have two candidates offering meaningfully different frameworks for what local tax burdens should look like. For buyers, sellers, and long-term owners in a state where assessed values have climbed sharply since 2020, this distinction matters.
The Stakes for Florida Homeowners
Florida’s property tax structure is already more complex than most states. The Save Our Homes cap limits annual assessment increases for homesteaded properties to 3% or the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. But that protection disappears when a home changes hands — which means buyers in competitive markets like Tampa, Orlando, and Miami have faced assessed values jumping to full market rate at exactly the moment they close. As of recent market data, median home prices in many Florida metros remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic baselines, with Miami-Dade’s median single-family home price still tracking above $600,000.
The affordability pressure this creates is real. New buyers in particular face property tax bills that reflect peak valuations, compounding the challenge of high mortgage rates and escalating homeowners insurance premiums. Any governor’s platform that proposes structural changes to how property is taxed carries direct implications for how affordable Florida ownership remains.
That context makes this race worth watching closely — not just as a political contest but as a policy signal for anyone planning a real estate transaction in the next two to four years.
Byron Donalds: A Supply-Side, Tax-Cut Framework
Donalds, the Fort Myers-area congressman, has approached property taxes through the lens of broader anti-tax conservatism. His stated position is that government at all levels — including county and municipal government — spends too much, and that reducing the overall tax burden on Florida property owners requires restraining both millage rates and assessed valuations.
On the campaign trail, Donalds has pointed to the constitutional amendment process as a vehicle for expanding homestead exemptions and has indicated support for measures that would make assessment caps more portable when homeowners move within Florida — a policy sometimes called “portability expansion.” Current Florida law already allows some portability of Save Our Homes benefits, but Donalds has signaled interest in broadening those protections.
His broader fiscal posture aligns with cutting state expenditures rather than replacing local property tax revenue with state funding — a distinction that matters for anyone paying attention to where school funding, infrastructure spending, and emergency management budgets ultimately come from. Critics of this approach, including some county commissioners and school board officials, have raised concerns that deep property tax cuts without offsetting revenue leave local services underfunded.
What Donalds Has Not Addressed
Donalds has been less specific about flood zone assessments, the intersection of property taxes and insurance reform, and how the state would handle revenue shortfalls in counties that rely heavily on property taxes for core services. For coastal buyers — particularly those purchasing in Southwest Florida markets that Donalds represents in Congress — those omissions are notable.
David Jolly: A More Cautious Reform Posture
Jolly, the former St. Petersburg-area congressman who has since left the Republican Party, frames property tax reform differently. His approach is less about blanket reductions and more about targeting relief toward primary residents, particularly long-term homeowners being priced out by rising assessments and seniors on fixed incomes.
Jolly has pointed to the growing gap between what longtime Florida residents pay versus what the state’s wealthiest seasonal buyers and investors pay — a gap that reflects how the current exemption and cap structure benefits stability rather than equity. He has discussed means-tested relief mechanisms and has been more open than Donalds to the idea that some property tax revenue is necessary infrastructure for functioning communities.
That position may resonate differently depending on the voter. Investors and second-home buyers may see Donalds’s framework as more favorable. Primary-residence buyers — especially first-time buyers in markets like St. Petersburg, Orlando, or Jacksonville — may find Jolly’s targeted approach more directly relevant to their situation.
It’s also worth noting that the conversation around property taxes doesn’t happen in isolation from broader fiscal policy. Florida homeowners could see significant tax cuts under certain ballot proposals, but the tradeoffs for local institutions are real — and any governor who promises dramatic property tax relief without a credible funding offset is making a promise that county governments, not the state, will ultimately be asked to absorb.
What the Race Means for Buyers and Sellers Right Now
For anyone making real estate decisions in 2025 or early 2026, the honest answer is that neither candidate’s platform is likely to produce near-term changes to your tax bill. Florida’s governor does not set millage rates — county commissions and school boards do. What a governor can influence is the constitutional amendment process, legislative priorities, and how state revenues are structured to relieve or increase pressure on local governments to collect property taxes.
A few practical realities worth keeping in mind:
- Your assessed value resets at purchase. Regardless of who wins in 2026, if you buy a home this year, your assessed value will reflect the market price at closing — not the previous owner’s capped rate.
- Homestead exemption filing is your immediate lever. If you’re a primary resident, file for your homestead exemption as early as possible after closing. It won’t change the assessed value, but it locks in the Save Our Homes cap from your first full year of ownership.
- Portability only works if you’re already homesteaded. If you’re moving from one Florida property to another, check whether you have accumulated Save Our Homes benefits worth porting before you sell. The window to claim portability is narrow.
- Watch the 2026 ballot amendments. Florida voters often decide property tax policy directly. Either candidate, if elected, may push constitutional amendments that go to voters — which means the real policy changes come from the ballot itself, not just the governor’s office.
Separately, the property tax conversation is being muddied by misinformation. A viral AI-generated hoax has already targeted Florida homeowners with false claims about property tax changes — a reminder to vet any “policy change” you read about online through official county property appraiser sources before acting on it.
The Bottom Line
The Donalds-Jolly matchup offers Florida voters a genuine choice in philosophy about how property taxes should work — broad reductions versus targeted relief. For the real estate market specifically, the more consequential near-term factor will be whether either candidate articulates a credible plan for Florida’s insurance crisis, which is doing more immediate damage to housing affordability than the property tax structure alone. A $15,000 annual insurance bill in coastal Lee County changes a buyer’s calculus far more sharply than a marginal shift in millage rates.
Watch what each candidate says about insurance reform alongside their property tax positions. That combination — not either issue in isolation — will tell you the most about what owning property in Florida will actually cost under their administration.