Florida Republicans rammed through a sweeping new congressional map Wednesday morning, handing Gov. Ron DeSantis a major win that could net the GOP as many as four additional seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The state House approved the plan in an 83-28 vote after a brisk session that wrapped in under 90 minutes. Not a single Republican rose to debate the map on the floor.
The vote wasn’t without drama. Democratic Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville, who is running for U.S. Senate, interrupted proceedings, shouting that the proposal “was out of order” as lawmakers moved toward final passage.
Across the rotunda, the Florida Senate prepared to take up the map later in the day, briefly pausing to examine a fresh U.S. Supreme Court ruling out of Louisiana. That decision found lawmakers there improperly relied on race in drawing a new majority-minority district, a development Democrats argued should slow Florida’s process.
House Democrats tried to force a delay, but their motion was shot down on a voice vote.
DeSantis, who had long predicted court intervention would trigger a redraw, signaled vindication after the Louisiana ruling dropped.
“Called this one month ago,” the governor posted on social media. “The decision implicates a district in FL — the legal infirmities of which have been corrected in the newly-drawn (and soon to be enacted) map.”
If the Senate signs off and DeSantis puts pen to paper, Florida will join a growing list of states reshaping congressional lines mid-decade. Republican-led states, including Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri, have already taken similar steps, while Democrat-controlled states such as California and Virginia have also moved to adjust maps.
The broader push gained steam after President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to shore up GOP control of the House heading into the midterms.
Democrats blasted Florida’s plan as overtly political, pointing to testimony from Jason Poreda, a DeSantis staffer who helped design the map. Poreda acknowledged under oath that partisan data played a role in crafting each district, a claim Democrats say runs afoul of the state’s Fair Districts Amendment, which voters approved in 2010 to ban partisan gerrymandering.
“The man who drew this map testified under oath that he used partisan data to draw up every single district,” said House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell. “Every single one. And when the governor’s attorney was asked whether Democratic voters were being underrepresented in our congressional delegation, his answer was, ‘That this is a normative question.’
“Members, if we vote yes on this bill, it’s not just that we’re being misled, we are blessing this mess. The timing tells the rest. The governor announces his intention to redistrict, shortly after the president of the United States asked Republican-led states to do exactly that. There is no neutral explanation for that sequence of events.”
Republicans, however, pushed ahead, arguing the new map aligns with legal standards and positions the state for the upcoming election cycle. All eyes now shift to the Senate and DeSantis’ desk, where the final step could lock in a major political reshuffle in one of the nation’s largest battleground states.
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