Democratic Win in Trump’s Backyard Adds to GOP Midterm Worries

A wave of Democratic successes in elections during Donald Trump’s second term has crashed into the president’s backyard, the latest warning sign for Republicans that their thin congressional majorities are in peril.

Florida Democrat Emily Gregory won a state House district on Tuesday that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence and favored Trump by 11 percentage points in the 2024 election. It was a morale-boosting win for outnumbered Florida Democrats in a former swing state that’s tilted strongly Republican in the past decade, and for House Democrats who need a net gain of three seats to win a majority. In the 2024 House elections, Democrats lost every congressional district that favored Trump by at least 10 points.

Democrats also flipped a Republican-held state Senate district in Hillsborough County, an electoral bellwether area in and around Tampa. Democrats have flipped 30 GOP state legislative seats since Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, compared with zero shifts in the Democratic-to-Republican direction, according to a compilation from The Downballot, a left-leaning election analysis site. A Democrat also won the Miami mayoral election last December for the first time in three decades.

The results underscore how governing-party Republicans are grappling with historical trends that favor the out-of-power party in midterm elections. Democratic voters are mobilized by anger at Trump, as was the case in the run-up to the 2018 election that delivered their party a House majority at the midpoint of his first term. Then and now, Republicans in Congress are struggling with Trump’s mediocre approval rating, underwhelming performances in special elections, and retirements within their ranks.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats, seized on Tuesday’s special election victories to call out Reps. Laurel Lee and Anna Paulina Luna, two Florida Republicans the DCCC is targeting for defeat in the November election.

Lee’s 15th District, which includes part of Hillsborough County, favored Trump by 11 points and reelected Lee by 12 points in the 2024 election. Luna’s 13th District, which has most of Pinellas County, backed Trump by 12 points and Luna by 10 points.

Rep. Cory Mills (R), who represents the 7th District in north-central Florida, could also face a tough race if he’s the party’s nominee in a district that favored Trump by 12 points.

Redistricting Fallout

Tuesday’s results may influence the thinking of Florida Republican legislators who are weighing revisions to the state’s congressional map in a special session next month called by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). No draft maps have been released, and it isn’tclear if the legislature will follow through on DeSantis’ desire to see a new map. DeSantis and the legislature scuffled over redistricting in 2022 before agreeing on new lines.

Some Florida Republicans may want to double down and pursue an aggressive gerrymander, given Democrats are likely to make gains from redistricting in California and Utah and possibly in Virginia.

Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, said on “The Sean Spicer Show” earlier this month that he expected a new map from Florida Republicans that “potentially could create three to five pickup opportunities for Republicans.”

Republicans already control 20 of 28 districts in Florida, and Democrats are prepared to challenge any more GOP-friendly lines in court as a violation of an anti-gerrymandering state constitutional amendment that says no district shall be drawn “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.”

“We will crush House Republicans in November if DeSantis tries to gerrymander the Florida congressional map,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said on X Tuesday.

DeSantis has said he’s waiting for a US Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana redistricting case that could limit the scope of the Voting Rights Act and restrict the creation of majority-minority districts, though there’s no guarantee the high court will issue a ruling by the time the legislature meets the week of April 20.

DeSantis has criticized the configuration of the South Florida 20th District of Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D), who represents a Black-majority constituency in parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties. Cherfilus-McCormick is under federal indictment on charges of stealing federal disaster funds and using the money for her campaign. An adjudicatory panel of the House Ethics Committee will hold a public hearing Thursday. Cherfilus-McCormick says she’s innocent.

Even the GOP’s Senate majority of 53-47 may be less durable than at the start of the 2025-2026 election cycle, as Democrats threaten to put some double-digit Trump states in play.

Alexander Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Trump whistleblower who helped spark the president’s first impeachment, is the best-known of the Florida Democrats making a longshot bid to unseat Sen. Ashley Moody (R) in a state Trump carried by 13 points. Democrats need to win Senate seats in at least two states that favored Trump by more than 10 points in 2024.