Now that Texas and California have completed their unusual mid-decade redrawing of the congressional maps, the next big prize is Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has heeded the urgings of President Donald Trump and called for a special legislative session. The exact timing of when the map may be redrawn is unclear amid disagreements between DeSantis and legislative leaders.

DeSantis said he wants to wait “as long as is feasible” in order to give the U.S. Supreme Court more time to potentiallystrike down key portions of the Voting Rights Act. If the justices rule the way DeSantis wants, that could enable a more aggressively pro-Republican map because map-drawers would no longer have to protect districts with large numbers of minority voters.

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules that race can no longer be taken into account when districts are drawn, “it will give the Legislature much wider discretion on creating new maps,” said University of Central Florida political scientist Aubrey Jewett.

So, once it’s done, what could Florida redistricting look like?

Analysts say it could produce a Republican net gain as large as five seats. Smaller Republican gains are also possible, especially in a midterm environment that’s looking stronger than usual for Democrats across the country.

But if the GOP managed to oust five Democratic House members, that would increase the delegation’s partisan breakdown from the current 20 Republicans and 8 Democrats to 25 Republicans and three Democrats.

That would mean Republicans would control 89% of Florida’s House delegation — in a state where the party’s 2024 presidential nominee, Donald Trump, took far less of the vote, 56%.

For now, it’s clear that essentially every Democrat in the delegation is a potential target, Jewett said, adding, “there are so many different ways to gerrymander a district.”

Florida’s Democratic House members cluster in three geographic areas.

South Florida: Democrats hold five districts in South Florida: Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (20th District), Lois Frankel (22nd), Jared Moskowitz (23rd), Frederica Wilson (24th) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (25th). These districts take in historically Democratic areas of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties; to varying degrees, these counties have become somewhat less blue, particularly in the 2024 election. (It remains to be seen whether these red shifts, particularly among Latinos, are long-lasting or subject to a midterm backlash.)

In a redistricting effort, any of these districts could see line changes, but Moskowitz’s, Frankel’s and Wasserman Schultz’s already have only a small Democratic lean; 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won each of these districts with between 50% and 52% of the vote in 2024. So only a modest bit of line-tweaking could endanger any of these incumbents unless a blue wave intervenes.

Both the Cherfilus-McCormick and Wilson districts, meanwhile, are more safely Democratic (Harris won both by roughly a 2-1 margin). But if DeSantis gets his wish at the U.S. Supreme Court, either district could be heavily redrawn. Further complicating the picture, Cherfilus-McCormick has been indicted on charges related to theft of a $5 million overpayment of federal disaster relief funds to her family’s health care company, and Wilson is 83 and is considered a prospect for retirement.

Central Florida: Two Democrats hold districts in the greater Orlando area: Darren Soto (9th) and Maxwell Frost (10th). Either could be at risk, especially if the Supreme Court rolls back the Voting Rights Act.

Soto could be on the thinnest ice, Jewett said, because “his district covers parts of three counties, and he won with just 55% of the vote in 2024 despite having a 47,000 Democratic edge in registration. This district is heavily Hispanic, with lots of Puerto Rican voters, so it could be a prime target if minority districts are no longer protected.”

But redistricting either Soto’s district or Frost’s district could imperil nearby Republican-held seats, said Rich Cohen, co-author of the Almanac of American Politics. These include GOP Reps. Cory Mills (7th) and Daniel Webster (11th).

Tampa Bay: The only other Democratic member of Florida’s congressional delegation is Kathy Castor (14th). Harris won her district with 53% of the vote and Democrats hold a registration edge of 40,000. “She may be quite vulnerable given Republican registration gains in Hillsborough County (Tampa) and given the ability of some of the surrounding districts to trade off some Republican voters and still maintain a lead,” Jewett said.

“I think two or three seats is the max,” said Sean Foreman, a Barry University political scientist. “Some may say three or four, or more than that, but it doesn’t seem possible without cannibalizing neighboring districts and risking the whole experiment in a midterm election that could be unfavorable to Republicans.”

Jewett agreed. “If there is a blue wave election, it is possible that the Florida GOP might not gain any seats and could even lose a couple,” he said. He noted that the Florida GOP has a 1.4 million lead in active registered voters, but said “there are a lot of Democrats still living in the state.”

Even a flip of two seats would add an extra measure of protection for the national Republican Party as it heads into a midterm cycle. Historically, midterms tend to produce a swing against the party that controls the White House. That longstanding pattern worries House Republicans, whose majority is currently a slender 220-215, assuming that four vacancies eventually result in those seats remaining with the party that previously controlled them.

Ultimately, the degree of competitiveness for the Florida seats will depend on who the parties can recruit to run. “Candidates matter,” Foreman said.

If the new Florida map enables the GOP to flip five seats, the state would have among the most heavily tilted maps of any state.

A flip of five Democratic seats in Florida would produce a partisan skew similar to the one in California, if California’s new map ends up with a five-seat flip to the Democrats. The difference between the share of U.S. House seats and the state’s vote for president would be 33 percentage points for Florida and 34 percentage points for California. (The maximum shift is not guaranteed in either state, so the ultimate numbers may vary from this figure.)

If a five-seat GOP gain materializes in Florida, the delegation would have a partisan skew stronger than that in Texas, another state that pursued redistricting in advance of the 2026 elections. Texas’ gap would be 23 points.

Florida’s skew would also be stronger than several other red states that have not undertaken mid-decade redistricting (South Carolina with a 28-point gap and Wisconsin and Tennessee with a 25-point gap) and stronger than several blue states that haven’t redistricted since 2022 (Illinois and Oregon with 28-point gaps and Maryland with a 25-point gap).

Among states that have at least four House seats, four red states (Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma and, for now, Utah) and two blue ones (Connecticut and Massachusetts) have U.S. House delegations that are entirely held by the state’s dominant party.

It’s possible that the U.S. Supreme Court might not rule on the Voting Rights Act case by DeSantis’ deadline. It’s also possible (though less likely) that the justices will not rule on the case in the way that DeSantis wants.

If the U.S. Supreme Court failed to decide the Voting Rights Act case as quickly as DeSantis wants, Florida Republicans could still draw maps that assume a forthcoming decision undercuts the Voting Rights Act. The state could then dare the courts to stop the maps from being used. A trip through the lower courts could leave the maps in place for 2026 even if they are ultimately overturned, Jewett said.

If DeSantis’ timetable prevails, the filing deadline for U.S. House candidates would be pushed back from April 24 to June 12, in advance of the state’s Aug. 18 primaries, according to an announcement by Secretary of State Cord Byrd.

The U.S. Supreme Court isn’t the only court that’s relevant here. The Florida Supreme Court will be, as well.

The state’s “Fair Districts” constitutional amendment — which voters passed with nearly 63% support in 2010 — is meant to curb partisan intent in redistricting (though a state Supreme Court decision last year weakened minority-protection language in the amendment).

But DeSantis has put his stamp on the Florida Supreme Court through his appointments, and the court may green-light his approach on redistricting.

“Theoretically, the Legislature and governor are not supposed to draw districts to favor or disfavor a political party,” Jewett said. “But that is not much of an impediment given that the Florida Supreme Court will have six out of seven members appointed by DeSantis, and the court has shown repeatedly that they will favor a conservative Republican view of almost any issue.”