In GOP Bright Spot Florida, Early Vote Gives Headache to Redistricted Candidates

Even in one of the few states where Republicans are feeling confident about the midterm election — Florida — early voter turnout among Democrats is causing heartburn for GOPers looking to shore up the number of Republican U.S. House seats after a mid-decade redistricting.In 2024, Florida sent 20 Republicans and eight Democrats to Congress. This year, after redistricting, they are hoping to tilt that to 24 Republicans and four Democrats. Cook Political Report lists four races in the competitive categories of toss-up or leaning Democratic or Republican. Only one is a Democrat in a Democratic-learning district. The other three are Democratic seats now possibly turning red. That includes an open seat that was held by Congresswoman Lois Frankel, who has been redistricted to the neighboring 23rd from her 22nd District. She is expected to win an eighth term. With reconfigured borders, President Trump won the 22nd against President Biden by 10.5 points in 2024 and lost by three points in 2020. Now, what was thought to be a gimme for Republicans is even odds between Democrat Pia Dandiya and Republican Casey Askar. In the newly redrawn 14th District Congresswoman Kathy Castor, no stranger to redistricting, is hoping the benefit of 10-term incumbency will help save her against a state Representative, Dave Beltram, in a district Mr. Trump won by 11 points in 2024. In Florida’s new central Ninth Congressional District, Democrat incumbent Darren Soto faces a tough fight against Republican Dan Green, who served as a deputy assistant secretary in the first Trump administration.With very little to look forward to elsewhere on Election Day, Florida Republicans are confident that they can hold on in a state that has shifted dramatically to the right in the last decade to deliver seats to a U.S. House that prediction models show will turn Democrat, it’s only a matter of by how much. In heavily Hispanic South Florida, Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar is now in a toss-up race against Democrat Elliott Rodriguez, in a district that Mr. Trump carried by 15 points in 2024. Ms. Salazar’s district was not significantly redrawn this year and she has a large fundraising advantage, but polling has shown a tight race with Mr. Rodriguez, who, like Ms. Salazar, is a former local television reporter well-known in the district even before pursuing elected office. The tightness of the race is being driven by Mr. Trump’s collapsing support among Latinos in Florida, a demographic that approved of his performance at the start of his presidency by a nearly 20-point margin. Now, however, only 36 percent of Florida Latinos approve of the president’s job performance. Over 70 percent of adult citizens in Ms. Salazar’s district is of Hispanic descent. Yet, the lack of enthusiasm — evidenced in the decline in the number of GOP early voters compared to the past two elections — has some Florida Republican candidates sweating. According to the Florida Division of Elections, more than 5.4 million ballots were cast via early in-person and mail-in voting, about 300,000 more than had been cast at the same point in the 2022 midterms. About 2.19 million of those ballots came from members of the GOP, compared to 2.06 million that came from Democrats — a lead of 130,000 for Republicans. That lead may seem impressive at first glance, but it is a dramatic swing from the GOP lead heading into the 2022 and 2024 elections, when Republicans easily won their statewide races. At this same point in 2022, Republicans had a margin of about seven points over Democrats. Now, it sits at 2.3 points. In both 2022 and 2024, Republicans cast a million ballots more than Democrats before Election Day. In total, Mr. Trump earned 1.5 million more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 in Florida while Governor Ron DeSantis defeated his 2022 opponent, Charlie Crist, by a similar number. This year, Democrats opened an early lead over Republicans in pre-Election Day voting, outpacing the GOP up until the end of October. Since then, the GOP’s margin over Democrats has grown, though not nearly the level that Republicans previously enjoyed. Patterns of early voting are not always predictive, and some have hypothesized that Democrats are showing up in person this year due to concerns over Mr. Trump’s threats to impose new rules on mail-in voting. But with solidly red states expected to turn purple this year — potentially in Kansas, Texas, and Alaska, for instance — Democrats are looking for any cracks to penetrate.The lackluster numbers were enough for Mr. DeSantis, who won re-election by 20 points four years ago, to caution Republicans about not losing ground in strongholds such as central Polk County, which he carried by 30 points in 2022. “Republicans are underperforming in Polk County,” Mr. DeSantis wrote on X, sharing early vote data showing Republicans and Democrats nearly tied in turnout numbers. That message did drive some Republicans to the polls in the 24 hours following the post, though Mr. DeSantis warned the next day that Republicans need to “sustain” the slight increase in GOP turnout if the statewide contests for governor and senator are going to stay in Republican hands. As of election eve on Monday, about 140,000 votes had been cast in Polk County, with Republicans leading Democrats in turnout by only 2,000 votes. The two most-watched state races of the year — the race to replace the term-limited Mr. DeSantis and the special election for a full term for the U.S. Senate seat occupied as a placeholder by Ashley Moody after the appointment of Marco Rubio to the Trump administration— are both favored to stay in Republican hands. The GOP gubernatorial candidate, Congressman Byron Donalds, is leading the Democratic nominee, David Jolly, a former Republican who previously served in the U.S. House, by about four points. Ms. Moody is leading a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America, state Representative Angie Nixon, by about six points in polling averages.

In GOP Bright Spot Florida, Early Vote Gives Headache to Redistricted Candidates

In GOP Bright Spot Florida, Early Vote Gives Headache to Redistricted Candidates

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