TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — With a razor thin GOP majority in the House, this year’s special elections sure are special, with both parties saying this may be the most important vote Floridians will ever make in a congressional race.
Voters headed to the polls Tuesday in parts of the state to elect two new members of Congress.
Special elections are being held to fill the seats of Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz.
Gov. Ron DeSantis weighed in on what he believes will be the outcome.
“Look, those are so overwhelmingly Republican districts that I think it’s physically impossible for someone as long as you put an R by your name to not win,” said DeSantis. “I don’t think if there is an underperformance that it’s a referendum on the president; I think if the president was on the ballot, he would win by 30 again.”
Republicans in D.C. are looking to add two more seats to their house majority in Florida Congressional Districts 1 and 6. Democrats, however, remain optimistic that they can flip the red districts blue.
“The entire country is watching Wisconsin and their state Supreme Court race, and they’re watching the two districts here in Florida and they’re doing that because they’re trying to take that temperature of whether or not Donald Trump and Elon Musk putting his thumb on the scale with his heavy investments through his pack and his personal contributions to state parties and whether they can really move elections,” said Tara Newsom, Political Analyst, St. Pete college.
Newsom added that these special elections brought both conservative and liberal investments, with Democrats over-funding their GOP candidates.
“I think that you’re already seeing an underperformance in both of these districts to the fact that Donald Trump had to take an hour out of his time this week to do telephone calls into these congressional districts because they saw that if in fact, they hadn’t done that, they were going to absolutely lose,” said Nikki Fried, Chair, Florida Democrats.
8 On Your Side followed up with both Republican candidates in the congressional races and asked them if they thought their competitors could turn the red district blue.
“We’ll know tonight, but I’m pretty optimistic that this is MAGA country. This is Trump country. President Trump’s troops are going to show up today. We’re going to put up a big number tonight and we’re going to go to Washington and stand behind the president,” said Randy Fine, (Republican CD-6 candidate).
While it may appear to be “MAGA country” in Districts 1 and 6, is the Republican margin of success going to be eroded by the increased Democratic investment? Former Chief Financial Officer and GOP candidate Jimmy Patronis thinks not.“President Trump won the majority of the popular vote, the electoral vote. And this is exactly what’s happening in northwest Florida. We’re going to send Jimmy Patronis to Congress, and we’re going to ‘Make America Great Again,’” said Patronis.
President Donald Trump made it clear the stakes are high, and time will only tell if these efforts on the ground here in the sunshine state are enough for Democrats or Republicans to head to D.C
