Democrats take three of four Florida House seats Republicans redrew in their favor
Democrats have taken three of the four Florida congressional districts that Governor Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature redrew this year to favor the GOP—the 14th, 22nd, and 25th—with Kathy Castor, Pia Dandiya, and Jared Moskowitz projected as winners. Democrat Darren Soto is narrowly leading in the ninth, the remaining redrawn seat, a surprising outcome on a strong night for Democratic House candidates.
The new map was meant to lock in Republican advantage: had those four districts existed in 2024, Donald Trump would have carried all but one by double digits and the last by about nine points. Instead, the GOP’s Florida push—part of a wider effort that also included Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina—failed to deliver the intended House seats. Some of the newly drawn districts in Texas and North Carolina likewise appeared winnable for Democrats.
Harvard election-law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos cautioned against reading the Florida results as proof that gerrymandering no longer works. In a “blue wave” environment, he argued, Republicans did not get the gains they hoped for; in a neutral climate he estimated they would still net around nine seats, and even now the new maps would outperform the old ones.
The congressional wins came as Florida, twice carried by Barack Obama and later treated as a lost cause for Democrats after Trump’s easy 2024 victory and DeSantis’s win by nearly 20 points four years ago, still delivered mixed statewide results. Incumbent senator Ashley Moody defeated Democrat Angie Nixon by a narrow margin, and Republican Byron Donalds barely won the governorship in a race few observers had expected to be close.
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