{"id":205105,"date":"2026-03-25T07:19:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205105\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T07:19:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:19:29","slug":"florida-democrats-score-upset-in-tampa-based-state-senate-race-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205105\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Democrats score upset in Tampa-based state Senate race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:The Hill;\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"The Hill\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"185\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/c5d8db50-4bb5-11ec-8fff-60edbf7d6abb.png\"\/><\/a>Wed, March 25, 2026 at 12:33 AM UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"w-full h-full object-cover\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0fed1f354823cf9876cd34526ea2f4de.jpeg\"\/><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"507\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ae07954d23151005e9066e47bc8a767d.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Florida Democrats scored an upset in the race to fill a Tampa-based state Senate seat, adding to\u00a0the party\u2019s\u00a0growing number of overperformances and flipped seats\u00a0in recent months, according to Decision Desk HQ.<\/p>\n<p>Democrat Brian Nathan, a Navy veteran and union leader, defeated Republican\u00a0state Rep. Josie\u00a0Tomkow\u00a0to helm Florida Senate District 14, which includes part of Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n<p>Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins (R), now a candidate for governor, held the seat before he was tapped by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to serve as his second in command.<\/p>\n<p>In 2022, Collins\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Jay_Collins\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:defeated Democrat;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\">defeated Democrat<\/a>\u00a0Janet Cruz by 9 percentage points, while the entire county narrowly went for President Trump in 2024\u00a0by 3 points.<\/p>\n<p>The surprising victory comes as the Sunshine State held a handful of other special elections for the state Legislature on Tuesday. Democrats were primarily focused on winning Florida House District 87, where Trump votes and his Mar-a-Lago resort is located.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wed, March 25, 2026 at 12:33 AM UTC Florida Democrats scored an upset in the race to fill&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13762,4215,5187,9105,135,137,136,82802],"class_list":["post-205105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-florida-democrats","tag-florida-senate","tag-jay-collins","tag-president-trump","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-union-leader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}