Daily Kos Elections' project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation reaches Florida, a swing state where the GOP enjoys huge majorities in both the state House and state Senate. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new data sets; you can also find all of our calculations from 2016 and past cycles here.
The GOP flipped the Florida state House in 1996, and they've held the chamber ever since. Last year, as Donald Trump was defeating Hillary Clinton by a narrow 49-48 margin statewide, Team Red won a 79-41 majority in the lower chamber. Trump carried 66 seats to Clinton's 54, with Trump trading six Romney districts for seven Obama seats. The entire state House is up every two years, and state representatives are termed-out after four consecutive terms.
On paper, the 120-member House doesn't look like it should be out of reach for Democrats. While Republicans drew the lines for both chambers of the legislature, they were somewhat constrained by the voter-approved Fair Districts Amendment, which prohibits map-makers from drawing seats to "favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party." In 2015, state courts ruled that the state Senate and congressional maps did violate this criteria, and judges drew up new boundaries (more on this in a bit) but left the state House alone.
The GOP-drawn state House map does still give the GOP an edge, but not a massive one. One way to illustrate this is to sort each seat in the House by Clinton's margin of victory over Trump to see how the seat in the middle—known as the median seat—voted. Because the House has an even number of seats, we average the two middle seats to come up with the median point in the chamber. Trump carried the median state House seat 50-46, 3 points to right of his statewide win. That means that, if Democrats want to take a majority, they'll need to win some seats that Trump narrowly carried by about four points, a feasible task in a favorable electoral environment.
However, Republicans aren't acting remotely concerned that they'll lose the House after 22 years of control. In fact, one month ago, Team Red chose their speaker for the 2022-2024 term! One big reason why Republicans are so bullish is that crossover voting very much favors them in the Sunshine State. Fourteen Republicans sit in Clinton House seats, while just one Democrat holds a Trump district. This includes the six Romney/Clinton seats.
One big obstacle for House Democrats is that, while Team Blue is getting stronger at the top of the ticket in the Miami area, voters still often favor Republicans down-ballot: Nine of the 14 Republicans in Clinton seats are from South Florida. The most ticket-splitting occurred in HD-103, which went from 55-45 Obama to 59-39 Clinton. However, Republican incumbent Manny Diaz, Jr. won his third term 53-47. Outside of South Florida, the bluest GOP-held seat is HD-47 in the Orlando area. This district went from a narrow 50-49 Obama win to 54-41 Clinton, but Republican Mike Miller won his second term 53-47; Miller is giving up his seat next year to challenge Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy in Florida's 7th Congressional District.
Four other Republicans represent seats that backed Clinton by at least a 10-point margin, while another four hold seats she won by at least five points. (One of these seats is vacant; Daily Kos Elections assigns open seats to the party that last won them.) The one Democrat in a Trump district is Larry Lee, Jr., who holds HD-84 in St. Lucie County. This seat went from 53-46 Obama to 50-48 Trump, but Lee won his third term without opposition. Just one Democrat holds a seat where Clinton's margin of victory was less than 5 points. Patrick Henry won his first term 53-47, even as his Volusia County HD-26 went from 58-41 Obama to just 49-47 Clinton.
Democrats are hoping that disgust with Trump will give them an opening with voters who backed Clinton for president but supported Republicans down-ballot, and they'll get a few chances to test this out in special elections later this year. Republican state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz is running for an open state Senate seat (more on that below), and he's announced that he will resign on Sept. 26. The special election for his HD-116 in Miami-Dade County will be that day, and this is a seat that dramatically swung from 55-45 Romney to 51-46 Clinton; Democrat Gabriela Mayaudon will face off with Daniel Anthony Perez.
In October, there will be a special for HD-44 in the Orlando area to replace a Republican who resigned to take a judgeship. This seat went from 53-46 Romney to 51-45 Clinton, and the primaries will be held Aug. 15. In December, there will be a special to replace a departing Republican in the Tampa-area HD-58. This seat swung the other way, going from 52-47 Romney to 53-43 Trump, and it's much more of a reach.
We'll turn now to the state Senate, where the court drew new boundaries for 2016 after the legislature failed to agree on a new map. The entire Senate was up in 2016: Half the members will be up again in 2018, while the other half won't face voters again until 2020. Trump's narrow statewide win gave him 21 of the 40 Senate seats; the median point in the Senate backed him 49-47, very close to his 49-48 statewide performance. Last year, the GOP won a 25-15 majority.
Just like in the House, ticket-splitting very much works in the GOP's favor. Four Republicans hold Clinton seats, while no Democrats represent Trump turf. The bluest GOP seat is SD-40 in the Miami area, where Republican Frank Artiles unseated Democrat Dwight Bullard 51-41 even as Clinton was winning 58-40. However, Artiles resigned in April after a racist tirade, and there will be a Sept. 26 special election to succeed him. The Republican nominee is the aforementioned state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, while the Democrats are fielding Annette Taddeo.