key to the GOP winning back the House majority<\/a> at the time. That map was able to withstand legal challenges, but with control of the House again on the line, a redraw now is sure to bring a flurry of lawsuits. One factor in the governor\u2019s favor is that state and federal courts may be loath to order a new map so close to the midterms and could let Florida\u2019s map stand for now.<\/p>\nDeSantis has argued that the last U.S. Census effort was flawed and robbed the state of at least one congressional seat. He also has pointed to ongoing population growth since the Covid-19 pandemic and a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Louisiana redistricting case that could force changes to the map.<\/p>\n
He already pointed to one district \u2014 that had been held by Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick until she resigned under pressure this Tuesday \u2014 as one that should be redrawn.<\/p>\n
But the governor, who has already delayed the special session by a week, has yet to publicly release a map with just days left before the session is scheduled to start. Legislative leaders have said it\u2019s up to DeSantis to keep the effort on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time we get to Tallahassee, I\u2019m sure there will be a map and the body will consider it at the right time,\u201d said state House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican.<\/p>\n
Some Republicans in Congress who have been skeptical about going ahead with redistricting said the results in Virginia might have made it necessary for the GOP to react quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t like this redistricting in the middle of the census, but in light of what Virginia is doing, we may need to respond to that,\u201d said Florida Republican Rep. John Rutherford, who has previously warned against Florida redistricting.<\/p>\n
Still, others are worried that an aggressive plan could backfire.<\/p>\n
Alex Alvarado, a well-known Florida political consultant who has worked with many prominent Republicans, recently published an analysis that suggested a new map would backfire for the GOP given the current political climate. He suggested it would result in no net gain for Republicans and would give Democrats a chance to win back seats.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have already compacted Democrats into such tight districts, the only thing you can do when you are redrawing is cut them out of there,\u201d said Alvarado in an interview. \u201cYou have to place those Democratic voters somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, also cautioned against expectations of sweeping gains due to the state\u2019s \u201cFair Districts\u201d provisions that ban partisan redistricting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think you’re gonna create deep-blood-red seats all over the state,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we just have to wait and see what the Legislature produces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats are already warning they\u2019ll make problems for DeSantis. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday that they will target Florida and will \u201cfinish\u201d the redistricting war Trump started.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur message to Florida Republicans is \u2018F\u2019 around and find out,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n
DeSantis, during a bill signing ceremony in Jacksonville, was not concerned<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018We\u2019re going to go after Florida.\u2019 Please, be my guest,\u201d DeSantis said of Jeffries. \u201cI will pay for you to come down to Florida and campaign. I\u2019ll put you up in the Florida governor\u2019s mansion. We\u2019ll take you fishing. We\u2019ll do all this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
For DeSantis, the outcome of the map-drawing gambit is as much political as it is personal. His second term ends in January, and he\u2019s speculated to have his eyes once again on ambitions beyond the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he can deliver, it will at least give him a slingshot back into Trump’s good graces, and maybe even elevated status in the broader Republican movement,\u201d said a second Republican strategist.<\/p>\n
For now, the White House seems content to let him take the lead \u2014 at least, publicly.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s political director James Blair, a Florida native and former deputy chief of staff to DeSantis, said Wednesday that has not been involved in the Florida map-drawing process. \u201cIf [DeSantis] chooses to go forward, he will draw them in a way that is compliant with the law and we’ll see what happens,\u201d he said on CNN.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t talk to the governor, I’ve not talked to those folks about it. But again \u2026 I think their track record shows that they know how to draw maps in compliance with Florida law and the Florida constitution, and we will see what they do next week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mia McCarthy, Gregory Svirnovskiy, Riley Rogerson and Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump’s redistricting war now rests on Florida \u2014 and his onetime primary rival Gov. Ron DeSantis.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8131,28,64744,3291,30,29,107673,14135,5052,6688,412,1360,9102],"class_list":{"0":"post-244392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-democrats","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-gop","11":"tag-florida-governor","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-gerrymander","15":"tag-gop","16":"tag-house","17":"tag-president-donald-trump","18":"tag-ron-desantis","19":"tag-the-sunshine-state","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244392","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=244392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}