TALLAHASSEE, APRIL 28, 2026 —
Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature opened a special session Tuesday to consider a new congressional map proposed by Governor Ron DeSantis that would redraw district lines across the state — a move that could flip four US House seats currently held by Democrats to Republican control ahead of November’s midterm elections.
DeSantis has proposed new Florida voting lines that could help Republicans win four additional seats in the US House. The governor’s office released a map Monday showing that, if adopted, it would create 24 Republican-leaning and four Democratic-leaning districts — a dramatic rebalancing of a state that currently sends 20 Republicans and eight Democrats to Congress.
DeSantis told Fox News, “Our new map for 2026 makes good on my promise to conduct mid-decade redistricting, and it more fairly represents the makeup of Florida today.
What’s Actually on the Table
The special session is part of a broader national redistricting wave that Trump set off last year by pushing Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps before November’s midterms. Texas Republicans gave their party an advantage in five additional seats, and California Democrats responded by helping Democrats win five more seats in their state. Florida’s session is the latest and potentially most consequential chapter of that battle.
DeSantis is calling the current map “malapportioned” and citing an anticipated Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais regarding the Voting Rights Act as justification for the redraw. That ruling has not yet been issued, despite rearguments in October 2025.
Democrats are fighting back hard. Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, called the redistricting effort “unconstitutional gerrymandering,” and some Democrats argue it could end up benefiting their candidates in the end — pointing to a phenomenon political analysts call a “dummymander,” where spreading Republican votes across too many districts makes previously safe Republican seats newly competitive.
The math behind that concern is real. A special election in Palm Beach County showed a 21-point swing toward Democrats, flipping a state House seat that Trump won by 20 points in 2024 — a result that suggested Florida’s political landscape may be shifting faster than Republicans’ redistricting assumptions account for.
The Legal and Constitutional Minefield
Florida state law outlaws political gerrymandering — redrawing lines for partisan gain. That prohibition, written into the state constitution through the Fair Districts Amendment, is the central legal vulnerability of the entire project. Democrats are expected to file legal challenges immediately upon passage, arguing that the new map violates the amendment on its face.
The path toward redistricting in Florida is difficult. The governor has suggested the state could be “forced” to redraw districts because of racial preferences in the current map in favor of minority communities — but that would only come from a US Supreme Court ruling on the federal Voting Rights Act, and that ruling hasn’t come yet.
The stakes for the national Republican majority are significant. The party in the White House usually loses House seats in the midterm, and Trump’s agenda could be at stake if Democrats take control. Adding four seats in Florida before voters go to the polls would provide meaningful cushion against that historical pattern — if the maps survive the courts.
The legislature is expected to vote on the map by the end of the week. Legal challenges would follow within days.
