David Jolly simply asks you to believe .

Jolly is the 52-year-old former congressman and MSNBC commentator who this week declared his intention to be the Democratic nominee for governor in 2026 when the office will be open for the first time in eight years.

He has already heard it all — that he can’t possibly win, that Florida has turned too deeply red, and that as a Democrat who used to be a Republican, he is a warmed-over version of Charlie Crist, and you know how that turned out.

“I am not naive about the challenge,” Jolly told me, “but I believe there’s a path forward for a Democratic-led coalition to win the governorship.”

Jolly, 52, is a fifth-generation Floridian, the son of a Southern Baptist minister, and he and his wife are raising two young kids, ages 4 and 6, in the Tampa

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