April 2, 2025 - 1:00pm
Like a bad Jaws sequel, Florida’s special House elections yesterday were anything but thrilling. Leading up to Tuesday, some progressives aimed to make the races — especially the Sixth District — a battleground, with donors pouring millions into the campaigns of the Democratic nominees. Ultimately, though, Republican candidates Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine ended up winning handily, albeit well under GOP victory margins from 2024.
These elections tested party coalitions. Democrats aimed to harness grassroots frustration with Donald Trump, while Republicans worked to mobilise their base without him on the ballot. Democrats have gained an edge in lower-turnout elections due to their highly educated voter base, while Republicans rely on disengaged voters who don’t always turn out. These elections tested whether the GOP’s populist-tech strategy could sustain voter engagement.
Perhaps the closest recent analogue to this vote was the 2017 special election in Georgia. Longtime Republican Congressman Tom Price won reelection in 2016 by 23 points before resigning to become Secretary of Health and Human Services. In June 2017, Republican Karen Handel narrowly won that seat by three points against Democratic newcomer Jon Ossoff, who would later be elected to the Senate in 2020. Ossoff’s photo-finish loss anticipated the bigger swing against Republicans in the suburbs — and the GOP wipeout in the House in the 2018 midterms.
Both Florida districts were much more Republican-leaning than Georgia’s Sixth District in 2017, but the rate of the swing is almost the same. In 2017, Handel performed about 20 points worse than Price, and the Republican nominees in the First and Sixth Districts in Florida performed about 17 and 19 points worse than their 2024 predecessors. Control of the House teeters on a knife’s edge, so even a small swing away from the Republican Party could have major implications in 2026.
A detail from Florida’s Sixth District may be illuminating. In 2024, Republicans cast about 52% of the vote, and it looks like the GOP constituted a similar percentage of the electorate on Tuesday night. This suggests that the Republican base did more or less turn out, which is good news for the party. Democratic turnout, however, jumped from 26% of the electorate in November 2024 to 33% of the electorate in April 2025.
As baked-in partisans on both sides showed up at the polls, independent turnout dropped, but it looks as though those independents who did show up broke in the Democratic direction. While Democrats were only a third of the district’s electorate, the party’s nominee Josh Weil racked up about 43% of the vote. That result is in line with public polling which shows increasing dissatisfaction among independent voters.
Florida’s special election results suggest that the alliance of tech and influencers may indeed have helped beef up the Republican turnout machine. Frantic fundraising, texting, and posting might have helped drive voters to the polls and kept these seats in Republican hands. A win is a win, and neither victory was particularly close. Speaker Mike Johnson can breathe half a sigh of relief after these elections.
The results suggest that the GOP’s tech and influencer-driven strategy helped bolster turnout, keeping these seats in Republican hands. But the shrinking victory margins indicate potential trouble ahead. Economic instability and the high-energy activist Left remain challenges and, to maintain power, Republicans must address the concerns of middle-of-the-road voters.
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