MS NOW host Symone Sanders Townsend acknowledged Tuesday that Byron Donalds had made history by winning Florida’s governor’s race, but questioned how much his election would change the state’s politics. She said he was likely to continue the course set by outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“As they say in my community, all kinfolk ain’t skinfolk,” Sanders Townsend said. She appeared to reverse the more familiar version of the saying as she argued that Donalds’ policies would resemble DeSantis’.
Tim Graham, the Media Research Center’s director of media analysis and executive editor of NewsBusters, criticized her remarks. He said they suggested that Black conservatives’ political views were at odds with their racial identity.
Graham argued that Sanders Townsend was portraying conservatism and Black identity as incompatible, and casting Donalds’ support for DeSantis’ policies as support for an allegedly anti-Black agenda. He compared the criticism to the treatment of Clarence Thomas during his contentious 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Thomas described those proceedings as a “high-tech lynching.”
In Graham’s view, the remarks implied that Black Americans were expected to conform politically.
Donalds narrowly defeated Democrat David Jolly, succeeding DeSantis, who could not seek another term. His win stood out for Republicans on Tuesday as Democrats gained power elsewhere in the country.
Sanders Townsend first recognized the historic nature of the result, noting that Donalds would be Florida’s first Black governor. She then discussed an interview he gave that morning on “The Breakfast Club,” saying his comments on policy sounded similar to DeSantis’.
Donalds has previously pushed back against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat, after remarks criticizing his marriage to a White woman resurfaced in 2025. Appearing on “The Joe Pags Show,” he said his wife should not be drawn into the political dispute.
