MAY 1, 2026
Florida Republicans pass new congressional map that could shift up to four House seats away from Democrats
Florida's Republican-controlled legislature approved a new congressional redistricting map this week, with Governor Ron DeSantis playing a central role in its passage. Analysts from both parties say the map creates 24 districts where Donald Trump won in 2024 by double digits, and if Republicans win all of them, Democrats could lose up to four House seats in the midterms. Democrats have said the map violates Florida's state constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering, and legal challenges are expected.
Florida's Republican-controlled legislature passed a new congressional map this week that redraws district lines across the state using what analysts describe as the classic gerrymandering techniques of "packing" and "cracking." Packing concentrates like-minded voters into fewer districts to reduce their broader influence, while cracking spreads them across multiple districts to dilute their impact in any single race, according to the Associated Press.
In the Tampa Bay area, the map splits what had been a competitive Democratic-leaning district into three Republican-tilting ones. Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor's district now incorporates more conservative rural areas; she said the new lines are "blatantly illegal" under Florida's constitution. In the Orlando area, the districts held by Democratic Reps. Darren Soto and Maxwell Frost are consolidated into a single, reliably Democratic seat, while surrounding areas are folded into a more Republican-leaning district. Frost said on social media that map-makers had to pair city residents with voters living two hours away to achieve that result. Soto said the new lines targeted Florida's Puerto Rican community.
In South Florida, a majority-Black district previously represented by Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick — drawn under Voting Rights Act guidelines that the U.S. Supreme Court effectively curtailed — is eliminated and redistributed across multiple districts. Democratic Reps. Lois Frankel and Jared Moskowitz, whose adjoining districts cover parts of Palm Beach and Broward counties, face divergent prospects: Frankel retains a more Democratic base, while Moskowitz's territory is divided across three districts. Former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz faces a choice between running in a redrawn heavily Democratic Broward district where she does not live or competing in a more Republican-leaning one. Wasserman-Schultz described the changes as "a nakedly partisan scheme."