Florida Democrats are running out of ways to win a statewide race.

So they called in an 80-year-old former President and handed him a microphone at a faith event.

But the verse Bill Clinton recited stopped short, and the lines he skipped say plenty.

Bill Clinton Takes the Pulpit for a Former Republican

Former President Bill Clinton chose Hollywood, Florida, for his first public appearance of the 2026 midterm season. He showed up at what organizers called an interfaith event to boost David Jolly, the Democrat nominee for Governor.

Jolly faces Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL) in the race to succeed Governor Ron DeSantis, who can’t run again because of term limits. President Trump endorsed Donalds. Florida voters settle it on November 3.

Clinton opened with the standard affordability pitch. He told the audience he’s “tired of politicians picking fights” while regular folks struggle to cover the basics.

Then he made the sale.

“You need somebody who will get up every morning and just bust a gut trying to do something that will help you. That’s what you need, and I think that’s someone in David Jolly,” Clinton said.

He also insisted he’s “not through trying to make things better.”

And he worked in a little church humor. Jolly grew up as the son of a Baptist pastor, so Clinton couldn’t resist. “I’m going to have to really practice now, never to refer to David Jolly as Reverend Jolly ever,” he told the crowd.

But the real sermon came near the end, when the man from Hope reached for the New Testament.

“And he has the background, the willingness, the ability, and the determination to get it done. I think we ought to give David Jolly a chance. There’s a big difference between being tired and quitting. That’s why ‘let us not grow weary in doing good’ is one of the Bible’s most important promises,” Clinton said. “For in due season we will reap if we do not faint.”

The Two Verses That Never Made It Into the Speech

Clinton pulled that line from Galatians 6:9. He didn’t mention what sits right above it.

The King James Version renders verses 7 and 8 this way: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

The Apostle Paul wrote those words to the churches of Galatia about the life of the Spirit and eternity. He wasn’t drafting a turnout plan for a governor’s race in the Sunshine State.

Fair enough, every politician cherry-picks. Candidates grab Bible verses the way folks grab napkins at a barbecue joint, a handful at a time and without much thought about where they came from. Maybe this was one of those.

But “God is not mocked” carries a little extra weight coming from Bill Clinton. The House impeached him in 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice before the Senate acquitted him in 1999. He also vetoed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 1996 and again in 1997, killing a bill that would have outlawed one of the most gruesome procedures ever performed on an unborn child.

That’s an odd resume for a guest preacher.

David Jolly’s Long Trip From Pro-Life Republican to Roe Democrat

The man Clinton came to help has done some sowing of his own.

Jolly represented Florida’s 13th Congressional District as a Republican from 2014 to 2017. He later left the GOP, spent time as an independent, joined the Forward Party, and then registered as a Democrat in 2025 to run for Governor.

As a Republican congressman, Jolly backed a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks and supported defunding Planned Parenthood, the abortion giant that has collected hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year. Today he calls himself “pro-choice,” wants Florida to write the Roe v Wade framework into state law, and promises to veto restrictions on abortion.

That’s a long way to travel on the question of whether an unborn child’s life deserves protection.

But Jolly’s shifts don’t stop at abortion. Donalds points out that Jolly opposed Obamacare in Congress and now wants to expand it in Florida.

Guns are another story. A Donalds campaign ad stitched together past Jolly remarks, including this line: “We have to crush the culture of guns in the United States.” Jolly has also backed background checks on every gun sale.

And Donalds has noticed the pattern.

“The shift in positions by David Jolly is not because of personal conviction, it is purely because of political convenience,” Donalds said in a recent interview.

Florida Democrats Are Praying for a Miracle

Florida’s political map looks nothing like the swing state from the 2000 recount. Registered Republicans now outnumber registered Democrats by more than 1.5 million voters.

Democrats haven’t won a governor’s race there since Lawton Chiles took a second term in 1994. Charlie Crist did occupy the mansion later, but he won it as a Republican before he switched parties.

Much of that shift happened during the COVID years. DeSantis kept Florida open while blue-state governors padlocked churches, schools, and small businesses, and Americans voted with their moving trucks.

A Stetson University survey released in October 2026 put Donalds ahead 52 percent to 41 percent among likely voters. A St Pete Polls survey from September showed a tighter race, 44 to 43. Several national forecasters now rate the contest Lean Republican. And official filings show the Donalds campaign has raised about $134.4 million to roughly $16.6 million for Jolly.

So the cavalry arrived. It just happens to be 80 years old.

Democrats Keep Borrowing a Book Their Platform Ignores

Democrats quote Scripture every election season, usually right around the time they need churchgoing voters who otherwise wouldn’t give them the time of day.

And the verses always seem to point toward bigger government. Help the poor turns into a new federal program. Welcome the stranger turns into open borders. Don’t grow weary in doing good turns into a vote for the Democrat on the ballot.

But the Bible doesn’t prescribe higher taxes or a sprawling bureaucracy as a Christian duty. It speaks plainly about the value of life in the womb, about marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and about God creating mankind male and female. The modern Democrat Party stands against Scripture on all three.

America’s founders built this country on Christian principles. Plenty of ordinary believers in Florida can tell a man who lives by the Book from a man who reads from it when the cameras roll.

Maybe Clinton meant every word. Only he knows.

But expect more of this as early voting rolls on. Codifying Roe and expanding Obamacare make a tough sell in a state that kept its churches open during COVID, so look for more folksy faith talk and more famous faces flown in from out of town before November 3.

Florida voters will make their own call. The verse Clinton quoted will still sit in the sixth chapter of Galatians long after the yard signs come down, with verses seven and eight right there beside it.

Sources: Breitbart News, “Bill Clinton Quotes Bible in Effort to Flip Florida Blue”; The Daily Beast; Western Journal; CubaHeadlines; Fox News; Political.org; The Floridian Press; Wikipedia, “David Jolly”; Galatians 6:7-9 (King James Version)