Florida’s redistricting gamble falls short as Democrats win 3 key seats

Florida Republicans redrew the state’s congressional map this year with a clear goal: turn a 20-to-8 House delegation into as many as 24 Republican-leaning seats out of 28. On election night, the districts drawn to make that happen are not delivering what the map’s backers wanted.

The Associated Press reports that Republicans are falling short in their effort to pick up four House seats in Florida through redistricting. As of 9:48 p.m. Eastern, AP had declared Democrats the winners in three of the districts at the center of that effort: Rep. Jared Moskowitz in the 25th District, Rep. Kathy Castor in the 14th District and former school principal Pia Dandiya in the newly drawn 22nd District.

At the same time, Florida remains firmly Republican at the top of the ticket. AP declared Republican Byron Donalds the winner of the governor’s race and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody the winner of the Senate race. The night’s message from Florida is more complicated than a simple swing, and it matters well beyond the state.

What the new map was supposed to do

In 2025 and 2026, President Donald Trump pushed Republican-led states to redraw their congressional districts in the middle of the decade, an unusual step meant to help his party hold its narrow majority in the U.S. House. Florida, with 28 seats, was one of the biggest prizes.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature produced a map that made 24 of the state’s 28 districts Republican-leaning, NBC News reported. Going into the election, the delegation had 20 Republicans and eight Democrats. The map was designed to help Republicans gain up to four seats, according to NBC News and Reuters.

The legal fight

Voting rights groups, led by Common Cause, the Campaign Legal Center and Equal Ground Florida, sued. They argued that the map violated Florida’s Fair Districts amendments, the voter-approved language in the state constitution that bars drawing districts to favor or disfavor a political party and protects the ability of minority communities to elect candidates of their choice. Democrats, including Castor, called the redistricting illegal.

DeSantis did not deny that the map was drawn with partisan effects, NBC News reported. He argued that the Fair Districts minority protections conflict with federal law, and he hoped the case would lead the state Supreme Court to throw out or weaken those provisions.

In June, the Florida Supreme Court declined, 6-1, to block the map for the 2026 election. The court did not rule on whether the map was legal. The majority said it lacked jurisdiction while a lower appeals court handled the case, AP and Reuters reported. Justice Jorge Labarga, the lone dissenter, warned that with a filing deadline and an election approaching, the court would not have the chance to review issues of statewide importance in time. The underlying lawsuit continues.

DeSantis celebrated the ruling. “The Florida Supreme Court has REJECTED the challenge to the state’s redistricting plan and new map,” he wrote on X, according to NBC News.

Three results that broke the plan

**Jared Moskowitz, 25th District.** Moskowitz, a Democrat, chose to run in a nearby district that had been reshaped to lean Republican. He won a third term over Republican Scott Singer, a former three-term mayor of Boca Raton who campaigned as an ally of Trump. AP described it as one of the most expensive House races of the cycle. AP declared Moskowitz the winner at 8:07 p.m. Eastern.

**Kathy Castor, 14th District.** In metro Tampa, Castor won an 11th term in a newly drawn, Republican-friendly district, defeating Republican Mike Beltran, a former state legislator and attorney. During the campaign, AP noted, she criticized the redistricting effort as illegal and voiced support for the infrastructure law signed by former President Joe Biden. AP declared Castor the winner at 8:13 p.m. Eastern.

**Pia Dandiya, 22nd District.** In a newly drawn, Republican-friendly open seat, Dandiya, a former school principal, defeated Republican Casey Askar. AP noted that Askar had promised to work with Trump, who had pushed for mid-decade redistricting to help his party keep its House majority. AP declared Dandiya the winner at 9:11 p.m. Eastern.

Other Florida House races are still being counted, and the final balance of the state’s delegation is not yet known. But AP’s assessment that Republicans are falling short of their four-seat goal is based on the races already decided.

Florida is still red at the top

None of this means Florida has turned blue. Republicans won the state’s two biggest races.

Byron Donalds, a Republican congressman and close Trump ally, defeated Democrat David Jolly, a former Republican congressman, to become governor. He will be Florida’s first Black governor, AP reported, and succeeds DeSantis, who was term-limited. Florida has not elected a Democratic governor since 1994. AP declared Donalds the winner at 9:09 p.m. Eastern.

Ashley Moody, whom DeSantis appointed to the Senate after Marco Rubio became secretary of state in 2025, won the Senate race, defeating Democrat Angie Nixon, AP reported.

That split is the heart of the story. Statewide, Florida voters stuck with Republicans. In individual House districts drawn to favor Republicans, Democratic candidates with strong local profiles won anyway.

Why candidates mattered

Redistricting moves lines, not people. A district that leans Republican on paper still contains voters who know their incumbent, follow local issues and judge candidates individually.

Castor has represented the Tampa area for two decades. Moskowitz built a profile as a state lawmaker and as the state’s emergency management director before Congress. Dandiya ran as a former educator in a new seat with no incumbent. In each case, a district designed around past partisan voting patterns met a candidate whom enough voters were willing to support across party lines.

Money also mattered. The Moskowitz-Singer race drew heavy spending, and both parties treated Florida’s redrawn seats as central to the fight for the House.

Republicans’ view

Republicans can point to real successes in Florida. They won the governor’s race and the Senate race by margins that confirm the state’s Republican lean, and the new map remains in place. Not every redrawn race has been decided. DeSantis has argued that the Fair Districts minority protections conflict with federal law, and the court fight over the map’s legality is not over.

Why it matters for the House

Republicans entered Election Day with a slim House majority. National party strategists counted on mid-decade redistricting in states like Florida to provide a cushion against losses elsewhere. When seats that were supposed to flip stay with Democrats, Republicans need to find those seats in other states or hold more of their own competitive districts.

That is why these three results matter. They do not decide control of the House by themselves, and many races across the country are still being counted. But they remove part of the margin for error that Florida’s new map was supposed to give Republicans.

The results also feed a national debate. Democratic-led states have pursued their own redistricting responses; on Tuesday, Maryland voters approved a Democratic-backed redistricting amendment, AP reported. Both parties will study Florida’s results to judge how much a new map can deliver when voters still weigh individual candidates.

What comes next

Counting continues in Florida’s remaining House races, and NewsCubby will update the picture as AP declares more winners. The lawsuit over the map is still pending in Florida’s courts, so the districts used tonight could face more legal challenges before the 2028 election.

For now, Florida offers a lesson for both parties: a map can tilt the playing field, but it cannot guarantee the result.