President Donald Trump brought his closing midterm argument to Florida on Friday, packing Alico Arena at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers to campaign for Representative Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor, and telling the crowd to vote on November 3 as if the president himself were on the ballot.
Donalds, the Naples congressman whose 19th Congressional District includes Fort Myers, is running to succeed term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis against Democrat David Jolly, a former congressman. Trump endorsed Donalds early in 2025 and urged him to run, and Friday's rally — held as early voting was already under way across Florida — put the president back on stage with him in the final stretch of a race that has tightened in its closing weeks. Senator Ashley Moody, who faces voters the same day in a special election to keep the Senate seat she was appointed to after Marco Rubio became Secretary of State, also addressed the crowd.
Trump's central ask was blunt. The president, whose name appears nowhere on the Florida ballot, told supporters his own record is what is really being decided.
"In this election I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot if you don't mind."
He argued that Republican turnout surges when his name is on the ballot, and said the same energy could carry the party's candidates this fall if his voters show up. "If we can get the people out, then we are going to have landslides the likes of which we've never seen," he said. "I've never seen a midterm election with this kind of action."
The rally, hosted by the Trump 47 Committee, drew long lines outside the 4,633-seat arena hours before the president spoke in the mid-afternoon. Florida Gulf Coast University moved most campus operations remote for the day, and counter-protesters gathered nearby. The speaker lineup was a show of Florida Republican force: Senator Rick Scott, Attorney General James Uthmeier, Representative Greg Steube, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz all took the stage before the president.
Trump used the speech to announce a $250 million initiative to hire at least 5,000 additional nurses for elder-care facilities across the country. He also backed Kennedy's push to label American-caught seafood, telling the crowd, "We're doing things for the seafood industry that they can't even believe," and calling Kennedy "the most important Kennedy in the Kennedy family by far." Kennedy, for his part, called Fort Myers the "greatest shrimpery in Florida."
The president ranged abroad as well, promising action against Cuba in the same breath as Iran. "We'll take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran," he said. "We'll do a little stopover."
The Fort Myers stop was one leg of an aggressive closing swing. Trump told reporters outside the White House that he and the First Lady plan to vote early in Florida on Saturday — "I think we're voting tomorrow in Florida" — before rallying in Georgia on Saturday and Michigan on Sunday. Earlier Friday, he spoke to reporters on the tarmac at Southwest Florida International Airport with DeSantis beside him.
Democrats have tried to make the governor's race a referendum of a different kind, tying Donalds to the president even as Donalds has at times kept his distance on the trail. On Friday there was no distance at all: the nominee got the president, the arena and the closing argument, all built on one request — "If we can get the people out, then we are going to have landslides the likes of which we've never seen."