U.S. Senate<\/a>, and the last two years of Trump are tied up in impeachment drama,\u201d he said, positing a scenario that could also hurt Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. \u201cMaybe JD and Marco get tangled up in that. And he can emerge from that. \u2018DeSantis Chaos Theory\u2019 to the nomination.\u201d<\/p>\nDeSantis ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination but dropped out after losing badly in the Iowa caucuses. He is expected to run again in 2028 and political consultants in both parties said that his push to produce more GOP seats in Florida will let him boast of his eagerness to fight Democrats, even if it results in Republican House members losing seats.<\/p>\n
Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican consultant in Florida, said he is not sure that rationale makes sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is going to be so much stuff in the wind in \u201928, both current and historical, with Vance and Rubio and whoever, that I cannot imagine a DeSantis-initiated redistributing scuffle in Florida in \u201926 will even register with primary voters in Iowa or New Hampshire,\u201d he said. \u201cBut never underestimate DeSantis\u2019 lack of judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that DeSantis\u2019 motive might be much simpler, with him leaving office at the start of 2027 because of term limits. \u201cI would guess that it is to curry favor with Trump. The man is going to need a job in a few months,\u201d Stipanovich said.<\/p>\n
DeSantis\u2019 use of his power to give his party as many seats as possible in the U.S. House is not new. In 2022, DeSantis threatened to veto a map crafted by state lawmakers that likely would have given Republicans a 16-12 advantage in the House delegation following the post-Census reapportionment that gave Florida one more House seat. He then vetoed a legislature-drawn map that would have given an 18-10 advantage.<\/p>\n
He drew his own map and insisted that the legislature pass it, which wound up producing 20 GOP seats. That margin was determinative following the midterm elections that November, which failed to produce the \u201cRed Wave\u201d that Republicans had predicted would give them a large margin in the House. DeSantis\u2019 four extra seats gave Republicans a thin majority in the House, which has gotten even thinner in the subsequent years because of resignations and special elections.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Democrats\u2019 success in recent months in special elections nationally and in Florida, reflecting Trump\u2019s sinking popularity, is the reason why many state Republicans are wary of DeSantis\u2019 plan. Even the existing map could prove a challenge for some GOP members seeking reelection. Redrawing district lines in an attempt to further increase the Republican advantage could have the opposite effect, particularly if, as many Republicans fear, November brings a Democratic wave.<\/p>\n
In any event, that the session is taking place less than seven months before those midterm elections could doom a new map, even if DeSantis manages to get it through the legislature. Legal challenges are almost certain to follow, including one from Republican nemesis Marc Elias, a Democratic elections lawyer, who has already vowed to fight it.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida will pass a new map, and they are definitely going to get sued, and they\u2019re going to lose,\u201d he said<\/a> last year when the idea was first broached.<\/p>\nHis office said Friday that he stands by that pledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite Republican nervousness that an attempt to squeeze more GOP congressional seats out of Florida in the current…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,41125,14124,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-236385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-gerrymandering","12":"tag-republican-politics","13":"tag-ron-desantis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236385","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=236385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}