{"id":252968,"date":"2026-04-30T20:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/252968\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T20:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:47:12","slug":"mario-diaz-balart-confirms-hes-staying-in-cd-26-after-map-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/252968\/","title":{"rendered":"Mario D\u00edaz-Balart confirms he\u2019s staying in CD 26 after map change"},"content":{"rendered":"

If it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it. That seems to be Republican U.S. Rep. Mario D\u00edaz-Balart\u2019s thinking when it comes to responding to a new congressional map Florida lawmakers approved this week.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz-Balart confirmed to Florida Politics that he intends to run again for Florida\u2019s 26th Congressional District, which he\u2019s represented since 2023 after the last round of congressional redistricting.<\/p>\n

First elected to the U.S. House in 2002, he previously represented Florida\u2019s 21st and 25th Congressional Districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely 26,\u201d he said when asked which district seat he planned to pursue in the Midterms. \u201cI\u2019ve represented almost all of the areas over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans in Florida\u2019s Legislature this week pushed through<\/a> a congressional map that Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis\u2019\u00a0Office designed to be more advantageous to GOP candidates in the Midterms, as President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0encouraged.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The map is expected to give Republicans\u00a0up to four more seats<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 including two in South Florida<\/a> \u2014 in the state\u2019s 28-member delegation.<\/p>\n

Under the previous 2022 map DeSantis\u2019 Office also drew, CD 26<\/a> spread horizontally across southern Florida from Naples in Collier County to northwest Miami-Dade County, including the localities of Doral, Hialeah, Hialeah Gardens, Medley, Miami Springs, Miami Lakes and Virginia Gardens.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s newly set boundaries<\/a>, approved Wednesday, shed all of Collier while keeping the Miami-Dade portions.<\/p>\n

Notably, state records show D\u00edaz-Balart registered to vote from an address in Florida\u2019s 28th Congressional District, which Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Gim\u00e9nez has served in Washington, D.C., since 2021.<\/p>\n

Federal lawmakers aren\u2019t required by law to live in the district they represent. The U.S. Constitution<\/a> requires only that House candidates be at least 25, have been U.S. citizens for seven years and reside in the state they seek to represent at the time of election \u2014 not within a specific district.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And under the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s 1995 decision in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton<\/a>, Florida and other states cannot impose additional qualifications, such as district residency.<\/p>\n

Still, candidates often choose to run where they live.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz-Balart, the longest-serving member of the Florida delegation to the U.S. House, has no GOP opponents so far in the race for CD 26.<\/p>\n

Two Democrats \u2014 Nicole Locklin and Gil Yurina \u2014 are competing in an Aug. 18 Democratic Primary for the right to for the right to face him in the Nov. 3 General Election.<\/p>\n

Through March, Locklin has raised $105,000, while Yurina has raised and spent $15,000.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz-Balart, meanwhile, has amassed more than $1.5 million and entered the first quarter of 2026 with $2.2 million on hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it. That seems to be Republican U.S. Rep. Mario D\u00edaz-Balart\u2019s thinking when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[110362,8184,28,30,29,8879,1064,373,10351],"class_list":["post-252968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-cd-26","tag-election-2026","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-mario-diaz-balart","tag-miami-dade","tag-miami-dade-county","tag-redistricting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252968","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=252968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}