To an even greater extent than its midwestern counterpart Ohio, Florida is a state that has rapidly transformed itself from a blue-leaning battleground state into a reliably, even fanatically Republican state. After being carried twice by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and then twice quite narrowly by Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024, something clearly happened in the Sunshine State to realign it dramatically with Trump’s winning margin in 2024 ballooning to 13 percent. The same thing happened at the sub-presidential level. Ron DeSantis won by an eyelash in 2018, then by a 19-point landslide in 2022. Republican senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott both won big in their last reelection bids (in 2024 and 2022, respectively) after tougher earlier outings.

Under DeSantis’s direction and with Trump’s encouragement, Florida’s Republicans have been quick to abuse their newfound power. Thanks to an ambitious and very late 2026 gerrymander, the state will have some highly competitive congressional races in November. The final outcome will heavily depend on the results of the August 18 primaries.

The new congressional map signed by DeSantis in May was designed to improve the GOP’s margin in the Florida U.S. House delegation from 20-8 (already over-representing Republican voting strength in the state) to 24-4. One of the targeted Democratic incumbents, Darren Soto, a five-term incumbent from central Florida, will need some luck and a big Democratic wave in November to survive. Another, ten-term incumbent Kathy Castor, from the Tampa area, has somewhat better odds of returning to Washington, though Cook Political Report rates her race as Leans Republican. A third, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, moved from her newly competitive South Florida district into a race to represent an adjoining deep-blue district whose congressional seat has been vacant since two-term representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned under pressure after being indicted for alleged misappropriation of federal disaster payments. And then the fourth, two-term incumbent Jared Moskowitz, chose to run in Wasserman Schultz’s old district; his race is rated a toss-up by Cook.

Primaries in these last two South Florida districts have drawn significant national attention. Wasserman Schultz, a former DNC chairperson who became the object of much progressive rage in 2016 for alleged favoritism to Hillary Clinton, has had a pretty quiet career since then. But she’s sparked a new firestorm by running in a plurality-Black district at the same time that Black representation in Congress is being decimated by GOP gerrymanders.

Wasserman Schultz is the front-runner in a crowded primary because of her name ID, her fundraising, and the inability of multiple Black candidates to unite on a favorite. Cherfilus-McCormick, who still faces felony criminal proceedings, is running for her old seat as is the man she twice defeated in primaries before her legal problems overtook her, former Broward County mayor Dale Holness. But the candidate with the real buzz is 27-year-old substitute teacher Elijah Manley, a self-identified democratic socialist (though not a member of Democratic Socialists of America), who was........

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