{"id":206792,"date":"2026-03-26T11:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206792\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:36:11","slug":"florida-upset-sparks-gop-redistricting-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206792\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida upset sparks GOP redistricting concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Republicans\u00a0are spooked.<\/p>\n

A Democrat\u00a0just flipped a Palm Beach County state house district that President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0won by 11 points in 2024. That upset only compounded growing fears that Trump voters \u2014 especially Latinos \u2014 are turning on Republicans.<\/p>\n

Amid all this\u00a0uncertainty, Florida\u2019s GOP-controlled legislature is getting ready to push through a revised congressional map next month to create anywhere from two to five new red seats.<\/p>\n

But now,\u00a0Republicans in the congressional delegation are beginning to publicly warn lawmakers in Tallahassee that an over-aggressive remap could backfire.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t do it.\u00a0I\u2019ve said it from the beginning,\u201d said Rep.\u00a0Daniel Webster\u00a0(R-Fla.), a former state house speaker. \u201cI\u2019ve been around enough reapportionments to know it\u2019s a slippery slope.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 strategy.\u00a0Florida has increasingly become\u00a0a central piece of Republicans\u2019 redistricting strategy. As Democrats strike back with new maps in California and Virginia, Florida is Trump\u2019s last chance to tilt the House battleground in his favor.<\/p>\n

But this plan\u00a0relies on Latino voters sticking with the GOP like they did in 2024, a banner year for the GOP in Florida. That\u2019s far from certain, and some Florida Republicans are warning that such a move is perilous.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could\u00a0potentially do two [new GOP seats,]\u201d Rep.\u00a0Mario Diaz-Balart\u00a0(R-Fla.) said. \u201cI think after that, you are really, really, really, really risking a very large overreach, which I think is in the Democrats\u2019 best interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The special elections\u00a0in Florida this week brought fresh worries. The state house seat that Democrats flipped is especially satisfying\u00a0because it includes Mar-a-Lago.<\/a>\u00a0Meanwhile, a Democrat is on the verge of flipping a state senate district that Trump won by seven points.<\/p>\n

Democrats\u2019 response.\u00a0Democrats say Tuesday\u2019s\u00a0elections have shaken up their midterm strategy and that they\u2019ll go on offense in Florida regardless of any GOP remap.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what\u00a0House Minority Leader\u00a0Hakeem Jeffries\u00a0told us.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our view, there probably are at least a half a dozen Florida Republicans, based on the results yesterday, who are vulnerable, and we\u2019re taking a close look at going into their districts aggressively.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a minimum,\u00a0Jeffries said, Democrats can target the three South Florida Republicans \u2014 Diaz-Balart and Reps.\u00a0Carlos Gimenez\u00a0and\u00a0Maria Elvira Salazar\u00a0\u2014 and GOP Rep.\u00a0Brian Mast,\u00a0who represents the Treasure Coast.<\/p>\n

If Republicans redraw,\u00a0Jeffries said they could create even more opportunities for Democrats.<\/p>\n

Florida saw a big\u00a0lurch to the right at the presidential level in 2024, leaving Democratic Reps.\u00a0Jared Moskowitz, Lois Frankel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz\u00a0and\u00a0Darren Soto\u00a0looking more vulnerable. All are targets in redistricting and represent significant populations of Latino voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need\u00a0to be really careful,\u201d Gimenez said of the legislature\u2019s remap. Lawmakers should study the special election results, he said. \u201cThey should look at what happened there. By trying to create more, you may end up with less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gimenez also said he\u2019s\u00a0warned the Trump administration: \u201cWe have lost ground with Hispanics due to what happened with immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Republicans\u00a0are spooked. A Democrat\u00a0just flipped a Palm Beach County state house district that President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0won by 11…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-206792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206792","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=206792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}