Democrats held all four U.S. House seats Republicans sought to flip in the 2026 midterms. In Broward County, the new lines still changed who will represent some voters in Washington.
By Marcus Ellison | M•I•A MEDIA GROUP
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans went into the 2026 midterms with a new congressional map and a chance to pick up four U.S. House seats. They came away with zero. Democrats held all four seats the GOP had targeted, and Republicans defended their own. The results leave Florida’s delegation at 20 Republicans and eight Democrats, the same partisan split as before the Nov. 3 election.
DeSantis signed the map on May 4 after the Republican-led Legislature approved it in a special session. It redrew 20 of Florida’s 28 congressional districts and was part of a broader push backed by President Donald Trump to help Republicans keep control of the U.S. House. The strategy depended in part on whether voters in areas that backed Trump in 2024 would also support Republican congressional candidates in a midterm election. In Florida’s four targeted districts, that calculation fell short.
Where Republicans expected to gain ground
Central Florida’s 9th District offered the clearest test. Under its old boundaries, the district would have backed Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024. Apply the new lines to those same votes, and Trump would have carried it by about 18 percentage points, according to Roll Call. Yet Democratic Rep. Darren Soto defeated Republican Dan Green by less than a percentage point. The Associated Press called the race for Soto a week after Election Day.
In Tampa Bay, Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor won reelection after her district took in more Republican-leaning parts of Hillsborough County. In South Florida, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz defeated Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer in the 25th District. Democrat Pia Dandiya won the open 22nd District, which now stretches from Collier County on the Gulf Coast to Palm Beach and Broward counties on the Atlantic side. Dandiya’s victory showed Democrats could hold a targeted district even without an incumbent on the ballot.
What changed in South Florida
Republicans can point to one result in their favor. They held their Florida seats in a year when Democrats captured the U.S. House. In Miami-Dade County, Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar survived a machine recount to defeat Democrat Eliott Rodriguez by 1,086 votes. That race helped preserve the GOP’s 20-seat delegation. Determining whether the new map saved any Republican seats would require a precinct-level comparison of the old and new boundaries. Even that would leave open how campaigns and turnout might have differed under the old map.
In Broward County, the redraw had a consequence that the statewide seat count misses. After the map substantially altered her previous district, Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz ran in and won the redrawn 20th District. It includes predominantly Black communities in central and western Broward and had been represented by Black lawmakers for 34 years. The seat stayed Democratic, while the change in boundaries helped set up a primary that changed who will represent those communities in Congress.
The map’s political value could look different in 2028, when presidential turnout may bring a different electorate. In its first test, Republicans preserved their Florida majority but fell short of the expansion DeSantis’ redraw put within reach. South Florida voters saw another effect immediately. The new boundaries changed who ran where and, in Broward, who will speak for several historically Black communities in Washington.
