Christopher Chestnut says his mother Cynthia Chestnut’s endorsement of Republican Byron Donalds isn’t about “kickbacks,” and that he is also endorsing the Republican over Democrat David Jolly in the Governor’s race.
“We’re not the sellouts. We’re being sold out,” he said in two long-form videos posted Friday, responding to efforts to “discredit” his family for not falling in line.
He said they are responding logically to yet another “all-white ticket” being pushed forward by the “big Blue bully” of the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) without any attention to what Black voters want, as white candidates from the Tampa Bay area continue to be pushed forward.
This continues a pattern, says the former lawyer who was central to Andrew Gillum’s campaign in 2018. He alleges that current Lieutenant Governor candidate Gwen Graham and the Florida Democratic Party worked to submarine Gillum by any means necessary.
Chestnut said Florida Bar Executive Director Joshua Doyle, a former aide to Sen. Bob Graham who worked for the FBI before joining the Bar, led the investigation of Gillum over tickets to the musical “Hamilton.”
Chestnut linked Gillum’s refusal to withdraw from the 2018 race under pressure to the Bar complaints that led to his own disbarment, which he said ended up “sacrificing” his career.
“We are in a race where they’re literally telling us to get out of the race. Andrew is adamant, he’s moving forward. Um, I literally remember people coming to me and saying, ‘Hey, I know you got Bar problems. If you fall back on Andrew, we’ll fall back off of you.’ I said I’m not for sale. And so then the complaints started to come. So it’s no coincidence, right?”
Chestnut was disbarred in 2019.
He also described Democrats working to sabotage Gillum after he upset Graham in August 2018, recounting a tense meeting with state and national consultants in Orlando hours after the votes were counted, in which it was clear to him that no one in the room knew how Black people live in Florida.
“These D.C. folks come in with no infrastructure, no familiarity with Andrew. And, frankly, undermine the campaign. And so, it seems like this is somewhat reminiscent of a Ponzi scheme. And that election after election. Black folks are expected to vote 86% Democratic. Expected to raise money for all of these candidates, expected to contribute our hard earned money, into this party that pays the same consulting firms for the same polls, for the same strategies, for the same TV, for the same staff.”
He maintained that Black voters heavily support Democratic candidates, but get nothing for it, likening the arrangement to continuing “to invest money in a mutual fund that’s lost your dollars every single quarter for the last 25 years.”
Chestnut went on to say that Gillum’s indictment in 2022 on wire fraud allegations during the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden was intended to stop the former Tallahassee Mayor from making a political comeback. However, Gillum was indicted days after qualifying ended, and showed no interest in another run for Governor that year.
Chestnut had kind words for Senate nominee Angie Nixon, whom he called a “superstar.” But he also believes the “party doesn’t really support her” due to the color of her skin.
“They would rather import Alexander Vindman from out of state, put millions of dollars behind him, than embrace an Angie Nixon. That pattern is very similar to what I saw with Andrew Gillum, where when we were running that race, they were freezing us out of the money.”
Gillum ended up raising a lot of money by November, more than he could spend during the campaign. But ahead of the August Primary in 2018, he was starved for resources, like Nixon before her upset of the retired Army Lieutenant Colonel.
Meanwhile, former Vindman deputy press secretary Evan Ecklund is now running comms for the Florida Democratic Party. She has no ties to Florida, having graduated from Georgetown and hailed from Texas.
Democrats are not addressing the Chestnut family defection in any meaningful way, choosing deflection over reflection.
FDP Chair Nikki Fried refused to take questions on the subject during an online press conference last week, saying she would talk to Florida Politics about it “offline.” But that conversation never happened.
The Jolly campaign announced a coalition of Black supporters this week as a seeming counter-message, including Senate Democratic Leader-designate Tracie Davis, other elected officials, and people who had previously been identified as part of the campaign.
Chestnut clearly wasn’t moved by the reaction of the party or the campaign to his mother’s apostasy.
He told viewers to “do your own research.”
“Maybe we should look at other options,” he said, claiming that Jolly, a former Republican Congressman who had worked as a congressional staffer, became a Democrat “one month before he announced for Governor.”
A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. His work also can be seen in the Washington Post, the New York Post, the Washington Times, and National Review, among other publications. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski
September 12, 2026 at 11:37 am
How Chris Chestnut made himself out to be a victim in all of this mess is really delicious.
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