{"id":207784,"date":"2026-03-27T02:50:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T02:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207784\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T02:50:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T02:50:34","slug":"democrats-are-flipping-seats-nationwide-tampa-was-still-a-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207784\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats are flipping seats nationwide. Tampa was still a surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

As voter turnout numbers in the special election for Senate District 14<\/a> came in Tuesday evening, Democrat Brian Nathan\u2019s prospects looked dim.<\/p>\n

Thousands more Republicans turned out compared to Democrats, according to unofficial figures released by Hillsborough County\u2018s elections office. One hour before the polls closed, prospectors on the betting platform Kalshi ranked former GOP state House Rep. Josie Tomkow\u2019s chances of victory at more than 80%.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think to yourself, \u2018Man, he\u2019s going to have to do very well with independents in order to succeed in this race,\u2019\u201d said Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who endorsed Nathan in the race.<\/p>\n

Then the results started rolling in. In a western Hillsborough House district where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats<\/a> by more than 22,000, Nathan was not only holding his own, but was leading Tomkow in the vote totals.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, was out at dinner when she remembered to check the results. She\u2018d door-knocked for Nathan and raised awareness on social media for the election.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw that he was way up,\u201d Castor said. \u201cI scared my colleagues with the way I jumped and yelled, \u2018Oh my god.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Nathan had to improve upon former Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 performance by over seven points. With all votes tallied, he appears to have done just that.<\/p>\n

He holds a lead of about 400 votes, or 0.5%, over Tomkow. That margin, if it holds once provisional ballots are counted, would prompt a recount, said Gerri Kramer, spokesperson for the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections. Elections officers will determine Friday if a recount is necessary.<\/p>\n

With another Democratic win<\/a> in a red Palm Beach County House district on Tuesday, Democrats have now flipped four state legislative seats this year. In 32 races this year, Democratic candidates swung districts left by an average of 10.9 points compared to the 2024 presidential election, according to data collected by the political website The Downballot.<\/p>\n

If Democrats are, on average, swinging districts by 10 points or more, why did Nathan\u2019s lead still come as a surprise?<\/p>\n

Tomkow, who until Monday represented part of Polk County in the state House, had a formidable war chest. Five days out from the election, she reported more than $1.3 million in contributions between her personal account and a political committee, Friends of Josie Tomkow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a real David versus Goliath\u201d in terms of resources, Castor said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nathan had raised about $120,000 by that same date.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy god, it was a nightmare being outspent,\u201d said Hillsborough County Democratic Hispanic Caucus president Victor Rudy DiMaio, who volunteered for Nathan\u2019s campaign. \u201cIt does have an influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebecca Heimstead, a 79-year-old retiree in New Tampa, said she votes in every election for Democrats on the ballot. But she didn\u2019t know a special election was happening until she began to see TV ads from Tomkow three or four times a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got overwhelmed with Tomkow\u2019s ads,\u201d Heimstead said. \u201cI never saw a single thing about (Nathan). I didn\u2019t know his name, and I did no investigation of him\u201d before she filled in his name on the ballot.<\/p>\n

Jackson McMillan is a political consultant and CEO of Key Lime Strategies, which helps raise small-dollar donations for Democratic candidates. He said friends and family in District 14 reported a similar trend. They learned of the election through Tomkow\u2019s ads.<\/p>\n

Nathan \u201cis a great candidate, and nobody knew who he was,\u201d McMillan said.<\/p>\n

That Nathan swung the district left is likely a testament to the national mood, McMillan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a resolution on the president,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What turnout numbers failed to convey is how third-party voters cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

Assuming most Democrats voted for Nathan, he would have had to net three-quarters of third-party voters and potentially some Republicans to reach his vote total, McMillan said.<\/p>\n

The day before the election, Nathan acknowledged that outsize Republican turnout in early in-person voting and mail-in ballots was \u201cconcerning.\u201d But he put his faith in the third-party voters he had tried to sway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have people coming up to me telling me \u2018My five Republican family members, they all voted for you,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The shift left compared to 2024 was especially acute in more-Hispanic precincts. In majority-Hispanic neighborhoods, the shift left was 13 percentage points. In majority-white neighborhoods, it was seven points.<\/p>\n

DiMaio credited Nathan\u2019s gains in those majority-Hispanic neighborhoods to furor against Trump\u2019s mass deportation efforts. Spanish-speaking volunteers also canvassed those neighborhoods in support of Nathan, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t see it in mailboxes or on TV,\u201d DiMaio said. \u201cBut you got a friendly face who spoke Spanish knocking at your door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats didn\u2019t prevail across the board on Tuesday. Republican Hilary Holley won by eight points against her Democratic challenger in Tomkow\u2019s former Polk County district. Still, Edwin Perez, the Democratic challenger, swung the district five points left compared to Harris\u2019 2024 performance.<\/p>\n

Evan Power, chair of the Republican Party of Florida, said special elections are a different environment than the midterms in November because they tend to have lower turnout from more engaged voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen this before; special elections are just that: special,\u201d he said in a statement posted on X<\/a> Wednesday. \u201cIt is not indicative of what can be expected in a general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a quarter of eligible voters in Senate District 14 came out for Tuesday\u2019s special election. In comparison, during the 2022 midterms, more than half of eligible Hillsborough County voters cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

But the Florida Democratic Party is touting Tuesday\u2019s results to build momentum for November.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy message to Republicans is this: Your district is in danger,\u201d Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a press call Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Times data editor Langston Taylor contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As voter turnout numbers in the special election for Senate District 14 came in Tuesday evening, Democrat Brian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[27211,95221,8131,276,27213,8874,11103,95220,27216,135,610,137,136],"class_list":["post-207784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-brian-nathan","tag-democratic-candidate","tag-democrats","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-josie-tomkow","tag-kathy-castor","tag-republican","tag-republican-turnout","tag-senate-district-14","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-city-council","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207784","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=207784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}