Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings at a fundraiser for his Democratic campaign for governor in Windermere on Feb. 19, 2026. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)
WINDERMERE — Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings is calling his bid to become Florida’s next governor the “I believe campaign.”
He wouldn’t have entered the race to succeed Ron DeSantis in the Governor’s Mansion this November, he explains, unless he truly believed he could surmount the odds against him.
“The elephant in the room is always, ‘Can he really win?’ he told the more than 100 people who gathered at a fundraising event held on his behalf at the home of Orlando attorney and Democratic fundraiser Mark NeJame Thursday night. “What do ‘y’all think?”
The crowd cheered enthusiastically, but Demings quickly reminded them that plenty of people don’t think he can win. He shared an anecdote about an interaction with an older white man in South Florida recently, who asked Demings directly whether Florida was ready to elect a Black man governor.
‘I said to him, ‘I think Donald Trump thinks so,’” referring to the president’s endorsement of Naples Republican U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds for governor.
While that question won’t be answered until the fall, the betting markets certainly think a Black man will lead Florida next year, as Donalds is the prohibitive favorite.
The odds are against Demings — as well as his main opponent in the August primary election, former GOP U.S. Rep. David Jolly — because they are Democrats in a state that has become a Republican stronghold during the past eight years.
“Let’s just be honest about it: We have 1.4 million more Republicans in this state than Democrats,” NeJame told the audience as he introduced Demings. “But we’re watching the polls and we’re seeing that people are finally starting to get it. We have to turn out. It’s an uphill battle, let’s just not kid ourselves. He can do it.”
Demings reminded the crowd he’s been on the ballot seven times in his career and won every race, including election as Orange County sheriff in 2008 after that seat had been held by a Republican for decades.
His law enforcement career began when he joined the Orlando Police Department in 1981. By 1998, he’d become the city’s chief of police. He then served as sheriff from 2008 to 2018, when he won the race for Orange County mayor. He is now serving his final year in that office.
Demings’ wife, Val Demings, stood at his side during his 20-minute speech. A former Orlando police chief herself, Val Demings represented Central Florida in Congress for six years before becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Senate in 2022. She lost by 16 points to Marco Rubio.
Several times in his speech, Demings referred to the greatness of America, at one point leading the audience in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. But he acknowledged that his love of country has been challenged at times by the policies in Washington and Tallahassee.
Pushing back on immigration policies
“I want you to know that I’m a proud American but, in the last year or so, I really had to think about that on a number of occasions,” he said.
“It’s because of some of the things that I’ve seen: The cruelty as we have been enforcing our immigration and customs enforcement laws as a nation. Yes, we must enforce those laws. But we can do it in a humane way that is representative of the greatness of this country, where we protect the rights of everyone. And that’s what I have the opportunity to do as the governor of Florida.”
Demings has tried to assert himself against both the DeSantis and Trump administrations on immigration policy. Last summer, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened to remove Demings and the entire Orange County Commission after they initially rejected an addendum to their existing 287(g) agreement with ICE to grant Orange County’s corrections officers authority to transport arrested undocumented immigrants to an ICE-approved facility when requested by that agency.
After initially saying he wasn’t going to allow Uthmeier to “bully” him or other Orange County officials, Demings ultimately acquiesced under “protest and extreme duress.”
Demings and Orange County officials have also been at odds with the U.S. Marshals Service regarding the reimbursement the county is due for housing immigrant detainees.
And there remain ongoing concerns about ICE’s potential purchase of a 429,000-square foot warehouse in East Orange County that would hold 1,500 detainees.
While he still believes America is the greatest nation in the world, Demings said, it’s on “some fragile ground now.”
Florida bans more books than any other state, he said, yet is also a place where “you can openly carry a gun.”
“Something’s not right there,” he said. “We’re out of balance.”
There has been little public polling of the Democratic gubernatorial race to date. A Mason-Dixon poll released last month showed Jolly with a modest four-point lead over Demings, but the majority (58%) surveyed were undecided.
Speaking to his crowd of donors, Demings said he’s willing to fight to win the race for governor, “but I need you to help supply me with the ammunition.”
“The ammunition comes in the form of support,” he said. “It comes in the form of you tell somebody else about this campaign. We are creating a grassroots movement, a movement for change. A movement for civility. A movement for normalcy. This is what we’re trying to do.”