Democrats on Tuesday notched yet more special election victories, this time flipping two state legislative seats in Florida that President Donald Trump carried in 2024—including the state House district encompassing his tacky Mar-a-Lago resort.
In Florida state House District 87, Democrat Emily Gregory beat Trump-endorsed Republican Jon Maples by just over 2 percentage points. Meanwhile, in state Senate District 14, Democrat Brian Nathan defeated Republican Josie Tomkow by less than 1 point.
Those are impressive wins given that both Democratic candidates were vastly out-raised and out-spent by their GOP opponents. In 2024, Trump also won the state Senate district by 7 points and the House district by 11 points, according to data from The Downballot.
More than that, though, Republican strategists should be afraid because the partisan makeup of the voter turnout suggested the Democratic candidates won blowout margins with independent voters. Polls show that independents have turned hard against Trump as the economy tanks and he embroiled the United States into another costly boondoggle of a war.
An aerial view of President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2022.
"Democrats didn’t win because of quirky special election turnout. The electorates were still double-digit Republican—and Democrats won anyway," Zachary Donnini, head of data science for VoteHub, wrote in a post on X.
If Democrats receive even close to that share of independent voters this fall, November's midterms could be an electoral wipeout for the Republican Party.
"9 alarm fire for GOP heading into midterms," Marc Short, a GOP operative and former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, declared in a post on X.
After Tuesday's results, it's now an open question whether Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will follow through on his demand that the GOP-controlled state legislature further gerrymander its congressional maps to try to squeeze out more red seats.
Given that some districts Trump won by double digits are flipping, redrawn lines could amount to a dummymander, accidentally helping Democrats win more seats out of the state than they would have under current lines.
"Florida Republicans aren’t going to gerrymander themselves 5 new seats and protect all their incumbents in an environment where plurality R electorates by registration are swinging 14 points to Dems," Democratic pollster John Hagner wrote in a post on X.
With Tuesday's wins, Democrats have overperformed Kamala Harris’ 2024 margins by an average of nearly 13 points, according to data from The Downballot. And that’s led them to flip 30 GOP-held state legislative seats since Trump reentered office, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Republicans, meanwhile, have flipped none.
And many of the wins are taking place across the country, in ancestrally Republican areas, Hispanic strongholds, and even on Trump’s own home turf, where he voted by mail despite calling the method “cheating” and trying to ban the practice nationwide.
“If Mar-a-Lago and Tampa are vulnerable, imagine what’s possible this November," Heather Williams, president of the DLCC, said in a statement. "Democrats are clearly on offense as we prepare for the most expansive midterm strategy ever down-ballot, with 650 seats in play. 2026 is shaping up to be an election for the history books.”
