JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida Democrats scored two major victories in yesterday\u2019s special elections, flipping a state House seat in President Donald Trump\u2019s home district and a state Senate seat most recently held by Florida\u2019s Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n The state Senate seat was won by Collins by nine points in 2022, while the state House district in Palm Beach County had previously been won by a Republican candidate by 19 points in 2024.<\/p>\n The state party is hopeful those victories are a sign of more to come in November, even here in Northeast Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cMy message to Republicans is this: your district is in danger,\u201d said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried.<\/p>\n Looking to November, Fried said she sees Republican vulnerabilities in Northeast Florida.<\/p>\n The flip in Trump\u2019s district was large enough to threaten local Congressional seats held by Congressmen Arron Bean (R-FL 4th District) and Randy Fine (R-FL 6th District).<\/p>\n Previous Republican victories for local state House seats currently held by Representatives Wyman Duggan (R-Jacksonville) and Jessica Baker (R-Jacksonville) were also within that margin.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to make sure that we\u2019re running up the scoreboard in 26 to protect Donna in 27,\u201d said Fried.<\/p>\n Florida GOP Chair Evan Power said he believes Tuesday\u2019s special election results were just that: Special.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re about to cross 1.5 million voter advantage here in Florida for Republicans, and I think the story is gonna be in November when we win, and we win big,\u201d said Power.<\/p>\n But UCF Political Science Professor Dr. Aubrey Jewett argued Republicans shouldn\u2019t get too complacent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a number of special elections since President Trump got his second term, and most of them, not all, but most of them have shown increased Democratic support,\u201d said Jewett.<\/p>\n Republicans are hoping Tuesday\u2019s Democratic flips will be short-lived.<\/p>\n Both seats will be back up for bid in November.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Florida Democrats scored two major victories in yesterday\u2019s special elections, flipping a state House seat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16650,982,95050,44843,8131,66800,18687,95049,28,95045,91487,95048,6281,5052,969,116,118,117,970,44784,34860,95047,34859,634,95046,9280,62358,977,27608,58779,11103,4219,4214,95044,61500,135,2684,54274],"class_list":["post-207396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-aaron_bean","tag-action_news","tag-aubrey_jewitt","tag-democratic","tag-democrats","tag-donna","tag-dr","tag-evan_power","tag-florida","tag-florida_democratic_party","tag-florida_democrats","tag-florida_gop","tag-governor","tag-house","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jake_stoan","tag-jake_stofan","tag-jay_collins","tag-jessica_baker","tag-lieutenant","tag-local","tag-nicky_fried","tag-northeast_florida","tag-palm_beach_county","tag-president_donald_trump","tag-president_trump","tag-randy_fine","tag-republican","tag-republicans","tag-senate","tag-senate_seat","tag-state_house","tag-tampa","tag-trump","tag-wyman_duggan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207396","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=207396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}