MS NOW Slam Stuns Donalds Victory

Man in a suit speaking outside a neoclassical government building — Photo: Philip Yabut / Shutterstock

Florida just elected its first Black governor, and within hours a liberal cable host said his skin color doesn’t make him one of her own.

Story Snapshot

Republican Byron Donalds defeated Democrat David Jolly by about 108,000 votes to win the Florida governor’s race.
Donalds will become Florida’s first Black governor and the nation’s first elected Black Republican governor.
MS NOW host Symone Sanders Townsend said Donalds would simply continue Governor Ron DeSantis’s policies, using the phrase “all kinfolk ain’t skinfolk.”
Opinion writers at The Miami Times and The Afro raised similar doubts, while Donalds has also broken publicly with DeSantis on at least one race-related issue.

A Historic, Narrow Victory

Byron Donalds, a Republican congressman and close ally of President Trump, defeated Democrat David Jolly in Florida’s 2026 governor’s race. Associated Press tallies showed Donalds winning about 4.13 million votes, or 50.0%, to Jolly’s 4.02 million, or 48.7%. The roughly 108,000-vote margin, under two percentage points, made the race closer than expected. Donalds will be sworn in this January as Florida’s first Black governor and the nation’s first elected Black Republican governor.

Multiple outlets, including NBC News and CBS News, called the win historic, noting Donalds extended nearly three decades of Republican control of the governor’s mansion. His victory showed that Black identity and Republican Party membership were not disqualifying for Florida voters this year, even though Donalds campaigned as a staunch Trump supporter. Still, the close margin left critics room to argue the result reflected a narrow partisan edge, not a sweeping mandate.

“All Kinfolk Ain’t Skinfolk”: A Cable Host’s Pushback

Symone Sanders Townsend, a host on the liberal network MS NOW, addressed Donalds’s win on air. She acknowledged the historic milestone but said Donalds would simply continue Governor DeSantis’s political direction. “Byron Donalds is making history, but he is going to continue the political direction that Ron DeSantis is going to continue in Florida,” she said, adding that on policy, “he sounded similar to Ron DeSantis”.

Sanders Townsend summed up her view with a saying from her community: “all kinfolk ain’t skinfolk.” The phrase suggests shared race does not guarantee shared political interests. Her comment quickly spread online, with critics arguing she was questioning Donalds’s authenticity as a Black man simply because he holds conservative views, rather than engaging with his actual record in office.

Progressive Writers Raise Similar Doubts

Sanders Townsend was not alone. An opinion piece in The Miami Times argued Donalds “built his political identity” around President Trump and DeSantis, “two political figures whose policies have undermined, undercut and trampled” on Black Floridians’ rights. A separate piece in The Afro, written by two national labor union officials, said Donalds had “sided with DeSantis,” whom they accused of showing “disdain for Black people”.

Politico reported that under DeSantis, Florida changed how schools teach Black history, eliminated districts that had elected Black lawmakers, and banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs. But the outlet also noted Donalds broke with DeSantis’s staff in 2023, criticizing state standards he said wrongly suggested slavery brought personal benefit to enslaved people. That record complicates claims he simply follows DeSantis without question.

A Deeper Debate Over What Representation Means

Political scientists have long studied whether shared race between a lawmaker and voters, called descriptive representation, guarantees that lawmaker acts in those voters’ interest, known as substantive representation. Research shows Black lawmakers on average provide more co-racial support in Congress than non-Black colleagues. But other studies find Black voters judge candidates on more than skin color, meaning race “opens the door” without guaranteeing support.

That academic split mirrors the fight over Donalds. Supporters note he earned votes through a statewide election, not an appointment handed down by party leaders. Critics say winning office proves nothing about whose interests get served once in power. Both sides agree voters, not cable hosts or opinion writers, will ultimately judge whether Donalds’s time in the governor’s mansion changes outcomes for the communities now watching him closest.