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TAMPA, Fla. – Florida Democrats are touting two upset victories after Tuesday\u2019s special elections, including one in Palm Beach County and another in a closely watched state Senate race in Hillsborough County<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hillsborough Special Election Results <\/p>\n In Hillsborough, Navy veteran Brian Nathan pulled off a narrow win in the race for a state Senate seat previously held by Republican Jay Collins.<\/p>\n RELATED: Democrat Brian Nathan upsets Republican Josie Tomkow in race for Senate District 14; unofficial results<\/a><\/p>\n Collins was tapped to serve as Lieutenant Governor last summer and his seat has since sat vacant.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nathan faced Republican Josie Tomkow, who gave up the Polk County<\/a> House seat she had held since 2018 to run for the Senate seat in a neighboring county.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n While District 14 has changed hands several times between democratic and republican candidates, Collins won the district by 10 points in 2022. Since then, the district, which includes South Tampa<\/a> and western and northern parts of Hillsborough County, has added a growing number of registered Republicans.<\/p>\n Political experts did not expect the upset from a little-known democratic candidate.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tomkow entered the race with a long list of notable endorsements and a deep well of campaign contributions that afforded her a steady stream of television, phone, digital, and mail ads in the weeks leading up to election day.<\/p>\n The contest also brought record turnout for a special election. Nearly 27% of eligible voters turned out to the polls, nearly double the turnout for the last special election in Hillsborough County.\u00a0<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n Nathan said the result could signal a broader trend heading into the fall midterms, which have historically favored the party out of power in the White House.<\/p>\n “Look how close the numbers were. I think this is just going to be the pattern we\u2019ll see through the rest of the state all the way from now through November,” Nathan said.<\/p>\n The Other Races <\/p>\n Democrats also flipped a Florida House seat in Palm Beach County.<\/p>\n Emily Gregory won more than 51% of the vote in a district that includes Mar-a-Lago and that President Donald Trump carried by 9 points in 2024. It marks the first time in decades that a Democrat has won the district.<\/p>\n In Polk County, Republicans kept control of Tomkow\u2019s former House seat. Republican Hilary Holley easily defeated Democrat Edwin Perez in the special election.<\/p>\n Looking Ahead <\/p>\n Because the Hillsborough Senate race was so close, an automatic recount could still be triggered.<\/p>\n According to the unofficial results, Nathan won by 408 votes, giving him a margin of about half a percentage point.<\/p>\n The Hillsborough supervisor of elections still needs to verify around 150 signatures, so the final margin was not yet settled as of Tuesday night.<\/p>\n Tomkow conceded defeat Tuesday night, but said she plans to run again in the general election in November. Nathan said he is looking forward to a rematch.<\/p>\n The Source: This story is based on information from Tuesday\u2019s special election results, interviews with Brian Nathan, and previous FOX 13 reporting.<\/p>\n Hillsborough County<\/a>Election<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. – Florida Democrats are touting two upset victories after Tuesday\u2019s special elections, including one in Palm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2811,47,28,30,29,629,115,99,628],"class_list":["post-205620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-election","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-hillsborough","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205620","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=205620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/vlcsnap-2026-03-25-11h10m52s123.png\")
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