Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida told Fox News host Trey Gowdy Sunday night that he and other black conservatives are targets of Democrats and liberal media outlets because they “don’t fit the narrative.”
President Donald Trump carried 13% of the black vote in 2024, according to CNN’s exit poll, compared to 12% in 2020 and 8% in 2016. Donalds accused Democrats and corporate media outlets of trying to “vilify” black conservatives after Gowdy described having a “front-row seat” to the hostility towards Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Republican Rep. Mia Love of Utah, who recently announced a terminal cancer diagnosis.
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“The reason why is because we don’t fit the narrative that the media has been trying to sell people in our country, that the Democrat Party is the only home for black people is simply not true, simply not the case,” Donalds told Gowdy. “As a matter of fact, black people are actually more conservative than the Democrat Party is. So when you see a Mia Love or you see a Tim Scott or you see myself and so many others come along, they have to vilify us, they have to demonize us.”
Scott, who gave the response to President Joe Biden’s 2021 address to Congress, faced racist attacks from liberals that included the “Uncle Tim” hashtag campaign on Twitter. Love, a two-term Republican congresswoman from Utah who was the first black woman to represent Utah in Congress, was snubbed along with other Republicans by Ebony magazine in a profile of black women running for Congress in 2018.
“This is something that we’ve had to develop over the course of our lives. I got into politics when I was 30,” Donalds told Gowdy. “That’s when I realized that I was a conservative and that I had to be able to sell that, not just to myself and convince myself, but to convince people of my community to support me. That’s why that media has to vilify us and destroy us, but it’s not going to work. We are not going to stop.”
Trump endorsed Donalds Feb. 20 for the 2026 gubernatorial race in Florida, where term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ seat will be open.
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