The memo comes as the Republican-led Legislature prepares for a Special Session called by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Despite past disagreements between the Legislature and the Governor, many GOP lawmakers expect House and Senate leaders to let DeSantis decide what potential new districts would look like.<\/p>\n
DeSantis hasn\u2019t shared a specific map yet, even as lawmakers are set to meet in Tallahassee April 20. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump\u00a0has\u00a0pushed GOP-led states<\/a> to redraw districts to try to increase the number of Republican seats in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n However, Alvarado\u2019s memo suggests changing the district lines now would actually hurt Republicans.<\/p>\n At-risk seats<\/p>\n The consultant says election results from 2018 to 2024, when Florida shifted from a swing state to a solid Republican one, show the GOP\u2019s advantage mostly comes from strong individual candidates.<\/p>\n \u201cAggressive redistricting strategies aimed at maximizing Republican seat count may paradoxically increase Republican vulnerability to adverse electoral conditions,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Republicans now hold 20 of Florida\u2019s 28 U.S. House seats. But much of that success depends on incumbents doing especially well, especially among voters who aren\u2019t registered to a party.<\/p>\n He pointed to several Republican-held districts where incumbents helped the party do better among voters who aren\u2019t tied to a major party. The clearest example is U.S. Rep. Mario D\u00edaz-Balart\u2019s\u00a0District, where he outperforms the party\u2019s baseline by nearly 11 percentage points. Alvarado estimates D\u00edaz-Balart consistently wins over more than 31% of voters with no major party affiliation.<\/p>\n \u201cRedistricting inherently reduces or eliminates these advantages through new boundaries, incumbent displacement, and loss of constituent service benefits,\u201d Alvarado wrote.<\/p>\n The problem is that redistricting would force even strong incumbents to campaign in areas where voters aren\u2019t familiar with their records. So, even though D\u00edaz-Balart does well with independent and Republican voters now, there\u2019s no guarantee that voters in a new District would see him as anything other than a typical Republican candidate.<\/p>\n This might not be a big issue for D\u00edaz-Balart\u2019s seat. Still, Alvarado identified three Republican incumbents Democrats are already targeting who have an edge now, but could lose it if the map changes.<\/p>\n Red to purple<\/p>\n Alvarado highlights recent Special Election results covering parts of four districts already targeted by one or <\/a>both parties.<\/a> These include districts represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz\u00a0and Republican U.S. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna,\u00a0Laurel Lee,\u00a0and\u00a0Cory Mills.<\/p>\n Under the current map, voters with no party in Moskowitz\u2019s district leaned Democratic by almost five points in 2024, but that margin may have dropped to less than four points recently. Still, the seat is seen as competitive.<\/p>\n But in the Republican-held seats, the changes are more dramatic. In Luna\u2019s district, voters went from leaning Republican by nearly 10 points to leaning Democratic by about 7 points. Lee\u2019s district shifted from a 12-point Republican lead to a 30-point Democratic one, and Mills\u2019 district went from a 13-point Republican lead to almost a 26-point Democratic preference. This puts all three Republicans at serious risk.<\/p>\n \u201cThese four districts would become tossup or flip Democratic without incumbency protection \u2014 exactly what the Special Elections demonstrated,\u201d Alvarado wrote.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, redistricting could shift some districts neither party currently sees as a battleground suddenly become one.<\/p>\n New landscape<\/p>\n Alvarado sees just four competitive races in Florida under the current map, assuming all current incumbents run. That means Republicans would be defending three seats and trying to win one.<\/p>\n But if Republicans go for an aggressive gerrymander \u2014 some activists want up to five more seats where Trump won a majority \u2014 it could actually backfire badly in November.<\/p>\n According to Alvarado, Democrats would still have eight safe seats \u2014 the same as now \u2014 while seven seats would become tossups. Even a map designed just to protect at-risk Republican incumbents would likely make every Democratic seat safer, leaving Republicans to defend three competitive districts.<\/p>\n Alvarado says the real issue is that the current map,\u00a0designed and signed<\/a> by DeSantis in 2022, already concentrates Democrats into a small number of districts.<\/p>\n \u201cSafe Democratic districts already run D+24 to D+41. There are minimal Democratic voters left to crack without creating new Democratic seats,\u201d the memo states.<\/p>\n The problem with redrawing the map is that making any Democratic seat weaker means adding more Democrats to Republican-held districts. This could also add more swing voters \u2014 many of whom voted Republican in 2024 but might shift left if things get tough for Republicans this year.<\/p>\n Growing anxiety<\/p>\n The tough environment for Republicans may be causing real worry among Trump supporters as November approaches, and Alvarado\u2019s analysis supports that. He thinks Democrats could gain two to four seats in Florida under the current map if it\u2019s a good year for them. But with an aggressive GOP map, Democrats could flip seven to ten seats.<\/p>\n These findings are likely to increase anxiety among Republican analysts\u00a0who are already wary<\/a> of redistricting.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the absence of racial protection, districts shall be compact,\u201d a Republican consultant said. \u201cIf you nuke minority districts, then they must be compact. Well, if you draw compact, you\u2019re going to make a bunch of Republican seats that much more competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll I\u2019m saying is, they had a great map. I was a huge fan of their map; it used a great legal strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n The strategist noted\u00a0that language on minority District protections and compactness in Justice Barbara Pariente\u2019s 2016 Florida Supreme Court ruling, which tossed a Republican-favoring map, helped make a map where the GOP held the statistical edge. That resulted in Republicans netting four more seats in Florida in 2022 alone.<\/p>\n Another strategist who works with Republican campaigns said redrawing the map would mainly benefit those who profit from having more districts in the state\u2019s Primary or General Election contests.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a GOP consultant\u2019s dream come true,\u201d the strategist said. \u201cThat\u2019s the only thing this is good for. From wearing a Republican hat, this is only good for consultants.\u201d<\/p>\n Inevitable nonetheless?<\/p>\n Still, as the Special Session approaches, it seems more likely lawmakers will approve a map as aggressive as DeSantis wants.<\/p>\n DeSantis hasn\u2019t shared a specific map yet, but he has said any new map\u00a0should assume the U.S. Supreme Court will deliver<\/a>\u00a0a conservative ruling in the ongoing\u00a0Louisiana v. Callais<\/a> case. That decision could end the Voting Rights Act\u2019s rules protecting majority-minority districts, and it could come as early as this week.<\/p>\n Three Republican lawmakers involved in the process expect that, despite disagreements over the past year and a half between DeSantis and House Speaker\u00a0Daniel Perez, both want a new map that favors Republicans \u2014 and so does Trump. One lawmaker said that unless there\u2019s chaos at the start of the Special Session, the Legislature will probably approve a GOP-leaning map quickly.<\/p>\n But as more analysis is released, it becomes more likely that lawmakers will push for a different approach.<\/p>\n Florida Congressional Redistricting Analysis <\/a> by Jacob Ogles <\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leading GOP consultant in Florida says redrawing congressional districts right now probably wouldn\u2019t help Republicans. In fact,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[103323,8861,3951,409,28,30,29,3854,8875,8879,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-230535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-alex-alvarado","9":"tag-anna-paulina-luna","10":"tag-cory-mills","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-florida-headlines","14":"tag-florida-news","15":"tag-jared-moskowitz","16":"tag-laurel-lee","17":"tag-mario-diaz-balart","18":"tag-ron-desantis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230535","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=230535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mike-Suarez-Display-Ads-728x90-px.png\")
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