The Divide · August 18, 2026
Florida holds primaries for governor, Senate, and Congress, testing party factions and fringe candidates
Florida voters held primary elections Tuesday to choose nominees in races for governor, U.S. Senate, and multiple congressional seats, with the state's closed-primary system limiting participation to registered party members. Trump-backed Rep. Byron Donalds entered the day as the clear Republican gubernatorial favorite in a crowded field, while Democrats faced intraparty contests pitting establishment incumbents against democratic socialist challengers. The primaries also unfolded under a redrawn congressional map and preceded general election contests in Alaska and Wyoming held the same day.
How the coverage split
CNN led with DeSantis's private concerns about Donalds and the intraparty tension they created, framing the GOP primary as a 'bitter intra-party feud' despite a likely predictable outcome.
Fox News and the Washington Examiner treated Donalds as the uncontested frontrunner and devoted more space to the Democratic socialist primary battles and antisemitism storylines than to Republican gubernatorial dynamics.
What both sides skipped
None of the cited sources reported on the total number of registered voters expected to participate or any pre-election turnout projections, which would be material context for interpreting the significance of fringe candidates' final vote shares in low-turnout closed primaries.
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