National Republican midterm hopes are falling on Florida’s redistricting process
After a failed, White House-backed effort to draw more Republican congressional seats in Indiana, Republican hopes to keep the U.S. House in next year’s midterm elections are now leaning on Florida’s redistricting process — even though the state’s constitution bars lawmakers from drawing maps that intentionally favor one political party.
Florida’s late candidate filing deadline, in April, has made it one of the only remaining states where Republicans could still eke out extra seats before what is expected to be a difficult 2026 election season for the GOP. Efforts to blunt losses by creating more-friendly congressional districts across the country have seen mixed success, with bids in Texas and Missouri running into legal hurdles.
Unlike other states that have undergone explicitly political redistricting efforts this year, Florida prohibits partisan gerrymandering, thanks to the Fair Districts Amendment passed by voters in 2010.
But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from counting on Florida to pass maps that work in their favor — expectations that have taken on more weight now that Trump-backed efforts to draw more Republican-leaning districts hit roadblocks in other states.
After Indiana’s state Senate last week shot down new maps bolstering GOP chances, the Republican political organization Club for Growth announced it would now focus its efforts on “states like Florida and Kansas to ensure conservatives have fair representation in Congress going into the 2026 midterms.”
The organization previously committed to spend at least $1 million to promote Republican redistricting efforts. Club for Growth president David McIntosh previously told the Miami Herald his group is waiting for the Florida Legislature to release new maps and then planning to blast ads in support.
Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power has also openly described Florida’s redistricting efforts as part of a fight to counter Democratic redistricting in blue states, including in California.
“The Democrats have weaponized this against Republicans in states that they control,” Power told the Herald. “We can’t just sit idly by while Democrats weaponize the electoral system and we just lay back and let them do that.”
His comments come in sharp contrast to state lawmakers’ insistence that politics aren’t playing a role in the unusual move to redraw the state’s congressional seats without a new census.
State Rep. Mike Redondo, the Miami Republican leading a House committee on redistricting, told the committee earlier this month that their work is “not directed by the work of other states or partisan gamesmanship.” The comment drew laughs from the audience.
House Speaker Danny Perez told POLITICO he has not been in communication with the White House on redistricting, after Trump unsuccessfully pressured Indiana lawmakers into signing off new maps. State Senate President Ben Albritton sent a memo to senators earlier this month telling them to “insulate themselves from partisan-funded organizations” on redistricting.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he wants a special session later in the spring to draw the maps. The idea was backed by Albritton, while Perez and Redondo have said redistricting should happen during the regular legislative session beginning in January.
DeSantis’ 2022 congressional map helped the GOP pick up seats and keep control of the House in that year’s election, when predictions of a Republican surge at the ballot box largely faltered outside Florida.
This year, Republicans acknowledge they face strong headwinds. Florida state senator and Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters described the 2026 outlook as “almost certain defeat” in a recent radio interview, pointing to the long history of the incumbent party losing midterm elections.
State-level Republicans have justified their mid-decade redistricting plans by saying the old maps were drawn under outdated guidelines, pointing to a July Florida Supreme Court decision undercutting a part of the Fair Districts Amendment that prevents lawmakers from denying “racial or language minorities” equal opportunity to “elect representatives of their choice.”
Democrats say the plan to redraw maps without new census data is a political play in violation of Florida’s Constitution.
“They intend to reduce the number of Democrats representing Floridians in Congress,” state House Democratic leader Fentrice Driskell said. “They intend to try to satisfy Donald Trump and help deliver a congressional majority in the midterms.”
Opponents to redistricting in Florida say their strategy is to challenge the legality of drawing new maps, rather than negotiate to try to mitigate what they see as a potential harm to voters.
The prospect of negotiating with Republicans on new maps would be the “Ohio option,” said Larry Hannan, the communications and policy director for the nonpartisan group State Voices Florida that’s organizing efforts against redistricting. In that state, Democrats agreed to new maps that only slightly improve Republicans’ chances to avoid a worse outcome.
“Are we going to bargain or negotiate? I don’t really know how you can do that in terms of not violating the Constitution,” Hannan said about Florida’s maps. “I don’t really see much room for negotiation because of that.”
Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried also insisted Democrats shouldn’t negotiate on maps at all, as they mobilize legal teams to fight against any Republican-led effort to draw a new map. She’s hoping the state’s Constitution will ensure an even worse legal fate to Florida redistricting efforts than Republicans’ mixed success elsewhere in the country.
“No new maps, hard stop. There’s no reason for it,” she said. “The Republicans want to jam through new maps to protect Donald Trump and not protect the people of our state. And that’s what’s going to backfire.”
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