Issue #222: Jimmy Patronis' Residency Issues and Redistricting Lies

He probably should have just kept his mouth shut

If you follow campaigns long enough, you see countless examples of a candidate trying to fix a problem they have and only making it worse. Sometimes you are trying to explain why you had a foreclosure on your house 10 years ago; and in trying to explain it away you reveal it was due to a gambling addiction. In retrospect, it might have been better to say nothing at all. Well this type of dynamic occurred last week when Jimmy Patronis stepped on a livewire when answering questions about where he lives.

For a short recap, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis is currently running in the special election for Florida’s 1st Congressional District. This is the seat being vacated by Matt Gaetz after his Attorney General bid fell apart amid the litany of sexual deviances documented in a scathing House ethics report. The district, which covers Northwest Florida, gave Donald Trump 68% of the vote.

Thanks to the deep red nature of the district, the January 28th Republican Primary is the main contest. Whoever emerges as the GOP nominee will almost surely cruise to victory on the April 1st (no joke) general election. I discussed the timeline of this special - and how much quicker it was organized compared with other vacant seats - in this December article.

The instant Republican frontrunner for the district was Jimmy Patronis, who as CFO of Florida has been elected statewide in 2018 and 2022. Patronis quickly had the endorsement of Donald Trump. With the Trump endorsement, several prominent local officials dropped their planned bids for the special election. Despite the Trump endorsement, a total of TEN Republicans did file for the seat. However, most of these candidates have little name-ID or strong ties to mount an insurgent campaign against Patronis.

A few candidates have run before, including Aaron Dimmock, who lost a primary to Matt Gaetz last year by 45 points. A full list of the candidates and their profiles can be seen here. I will do a preview of other candidates and the state of the race as the primary gets closer. Arguably the strongest challenger to Patronis is State Representative Joel Rudman - who’s HD3 seat covers much of Santa Rosa and parts of Okaloosa county - very vote-rich areas. Patronis’ big problem is the fact he doesn’t live in the district at all!

Patronis has strong Panama City roots. When making his electoral debut, he won a 2006 election to the Bay, Gulf, and Franklin based HD6. His seat was re-arranged to Bay-only in 2012. The issue for Patronis is - none of these districts overlap with the 1st Congressional.

Patronis has only ever been on a ballot in the 1st Congressional district when he was on the general election ballot for the statewide CFO position. He has no local electoral or civic ties within the counties of the 1st Congressional. Rudman, however, has a base right in the heart of the district covering two vote-rich counties.

This residency issue, which clearly Patronis realizes may cause him trouble, led to the frontrunner making an amazing gaff when he blamed his lack of residency in the district on GERRYMANDERING. Not only that, he specifically sited his own Republican Party doing gerrymandering as the reason. At a candidate forum he said the following

“Let me give you a little civics lesson. Do you know why District 1 is where it is? It’s because a Republican Legislature is in charge right now – and this is what we’ve done since Daniel Webster was speaker of the House as a Republican – we try to create as many Republican congressional seats as possible. Okay? So what happened? You get gerrymandered lines.”

The statement was mocked by Rudman and infuriated Republicans. The state is still in the middle of a lawsuit over the Congressional map - specifically over the destruction of the black-performing 5th Congressional district in Northeast Florida. If you need a recap of that saga, you can read my review of the situation here. The lawsuit is currently with the Florida Supreme Court - who have yet to rule. Patronis admitting Republicans gerrymandered the districts shows the legislature violated Florida law when it comes to redistricting. He basically threw his party under the bus.

So Patronis admits the Congressional map is gerrymandered, but is THIS SEAT gerrymandered? After all, some parts of the state could have illegal lines, but that doesn’t mean every part of the map is bad. There is alot to unpack here, and trust me I will directly answer his claim. First, however, we should discuss where Patronis DOES live and why he’s running for this seat at all.

Where on Earth is Jimmy Patronis?

Patronis is born and raised in Panama City and Bay County broadly. In the 2000s, after serving on the Florida election commission, he was chairman of the Bay County Airport Authority. Then in 2006, he wan for an open state house district, HD6, which covers part of Bay, all of Gulf, and part of Franklin counties. He won the primary and had no tough elections afterward. In 2012, his district was redraw to be just in Bay County.

As he hit term limits in 2014, Patronis was looking to run for the State Senate when the district became open in 2016. That year, Don Gaetz would be retiring and his son, the infamous Matt Gaetz, was planning to succeed his father. This was destined to set up a major clash between Gaetz’s base in Okaloosa and Patronis’ base in Bay County.

However, this primary was avoided when Patronis was appointed by Rick Scott to the Public Service Commission. This move was widely seen as Patronis being bought off by GOP leaders to avoid a contentious and expensive state senate primary. Eventually Matt Gaetz would run for Congress instead of State Senate after Congressman Jeff Miller opted to retire. Neither Gaetz or Patronis would go to the state senate.

Then in 2017, Florida CFO Jeff Atwater announced he was resigning early to become President of Florida Atlantic University. The vacancy of a cabinet officer is filled by the Governor until the next election date. Patronis was picked for the post and was able to glide to 2018 and 2022 elections amid other GOP statewide wins. In his time as CFO, Patronis has worked to use his office to suck up to national Republican figures. He’s long wanted to run for Governor, and used his office to find anyway to secure favor with the MAGA side of the GOP. This included things like saying Florida should have paid Trump’s legal bills for his many trials.

For Patronis, however, Governor does not appear to be in cards. The 2026 likely candidate pool is already full of personalities that will far eclipse Patronis, leaving him an afterthought. However, when the 1st Congressional opened up, it offered a perfect “thanks for being a good loyal solider” post for GOP leaders to plant him. Trump, of course, gave him a big endorsement, and Republican leaders can say they did right by him. Forget just having a wide open primary with locals running - Florida Congressional Seats are treated by GOP leaders as simple pieces on a chess board.

This still left Patronis with the issue of not living in the Congressional district. Patronis does not have to live in the district to run, but the issue is becoming a political liability. This sparked Patronis to make his claim about gerrymandering. So… lets answer that claim.

Redistricting the Western Panhandle

Jimmy Patronis’ argument about gerrymandering being the reason Panama City is not in the 1st Congressional district is historic nonsense. However, it does come from slight bits of truth that can be easy to distort. Don’t worry though, I have all the clarity for this matter. After all, in 2021, I wrote a NINE PART SERIES on Florida redistricting from the 1960s to Present day. You can read everything here, but don’t worry I’m going to cover what we need right here.

Lets start in 1992 when the Congressional districts looked like this for Northwest Florida. Fairly simple lines, compact, with just Bay county split.

In previous decades, Bay County had been in the 1st Congressional district. However, as the Northwest panhandle grew, the district had to shrink in size to avoid over-population. By the 1980s and 1990s maps, Bay had to be split to keep population figures even. Panama City was largely in the 2nd district, but a bit of it was in the 1st.

In his statement, Patronis sited the 2002 remap as when Republican gerrymandering began. He is correct that this was when the era of GOP gerrymandering started. I wrote about the 2002 redistricting process here. This was the first redistricting session after Republicans took control of both legislative chambers and had Jeb Bush as governor. They passed a gerrymandered legislative and congressional map that drew out Democratic members and boosted Republican ranks.

So what did the 2002 remap look like in Northwest Florida. See below.

Three key things change with the Northwest Florida districts. Bay is made whole in the 2nd district and coastal pieces of Okaloosa and Walton are also added. Meanwhile the 1st takes Washington County. Panama City is indeed entirely in the 2nd district. This is the fact that Patronis hinges his claim on. However, lets investigate this further to show why his claim doesn’t hold as much water as he thinks.

The changes made to the 1st were a result of efforts to change the 2nd Congressional District, held by Democrat Allen Boyd. Republicans wanted to knock Boyd out, so they drew out areas that were strong for Democrats and added in Republican-heavy coastal communities in the west.

Patronis’ gerrymandering argument hinges ton the blue portion of the map, the areas added to Boyd’s district - and thus removed from the first. He is correct that gerrymandering affected the 2002 lines. However, gerrymandering is not the reason for Panama City being put in Boyd’s seat. The fact is, Bay/Panama City would have been in the 2nd congressional district regardless. This is why…..

• When the 2000 census numbers came out, the 1st Congressional District the one drawn in 1992 had a population of 683,998.

• This population total was just over 44,000 too many. New Congressional district need to be 639,295 people. This meant the 1st would need to shrink - moving further west.

• Any partisan considerations aside, one big move that would have made the 1st Congressional almost perfectly in line with the needed population would be to have 2nd take all of Bay County. Such a move would have given the 1st district a population of 641,826.

• After Bay was made whole in the 2nd, just a few thousand more voters would need to be removed, and boom, 1st district is all set.

A redrawing of the 1st district without considering party affiliation would have looked similar to this plan below. The only additional change would have been the 2nd taking a couple precincts from Holmes or Walton to balance populations.

This map, drawn with the notion of “least change” from 1992 and without considering party dynamics, would have left Panama City entirely outside of the district. Patronis’ argument about gerrymandering did NOT matter for Bay County. Fair or gerrymander - Bay was going to be removed from the 1st District. The gerrymandering that occurred related to other counties. Specifically this…

• Washington County, a rural ancestral Democratic area that Boyd was strong in was removed and given to the 1st. This added 21,000 people to the 1st Congressional.

• Coastal Walton and Okaloosa, covering around 23,000 people, most who are solidly Republican, are removed from the 1st and added to the 2nd to try and hurt Boyd.

Gerrymandering in 2002 was NOT why Bay County wasn’t in the 1st Congressional. Instead, gerrymandering was why coastal Walton & Okaloosa were not in the 1st congressional. So Patronis was correct that gerrymandering occurred in 2002, but its not anything related to Panama City. Btw that 2002 gerrymandering did not help against Allen Boyd. While the gerrymander of central Florida did cost Democrats seats, Boyd avoided a major Republican challenger and easily won re-election. The only areas firmly Republican were those Walton and Okaloosa slivers. You can see a map of that race in this Allen Boyd history series I wrote.

Just to wrap this redistricting story up. Ten years later districts needed to be drawn again. The 2012 map passed was much cleaner, as it was the first time lawmakers had to adhere to the Fair Districts guidelines that voters had passed. The new 1st Congressional was very similar to what an alternative 2002 map could have been. Counties were kept whole, with a bit of Holmes given to the 2nd to balance out populations. Again no Panama City - the district would have been way to overpopulated if it went into Bay County.

Those of you who remember, in 2015, the Florida legislature was forced to redraw most districts after a major redistricting lawsuit revealed gerrymandering in other parts of the state. A new map was passed in late 2015 and early 2016, though the 1st district, already being compact and without gerrymandering claims, was the lone district to not change at all!

We then arrive at 2022. Thanks to population grows in Northwest Florida, the 2nd district had to shrink in size again. The proposal was uncontroversial, with the 1st district retreating entirely from Holmes and splitting Walton in half.

The Walton border follows many key roads. You could argue about splitting Walton North-South instead of East-West, but neither would change the district fundamentally. It certainty would not matter for Jimmy Patronis’ argument about Panama City. There is no scenario here where Panama City is in the 1st district.

Unless……

The Jimmymander

Jimmy Patronis really stepped in it with his gerrymandering quip. It was a statement that can easily be proven false. On top of his excuse not holding water, he still put his fellow Republicans in a terrible position when he admitted that, YES, partisan gerrymandering is occurring! His problem is its not occurring where he’s running.

But I thought about what Jimmy said. After all, why shouldn’t Pensacola and Panama City be in the same Congressional district? So with that, I present the version of the 1st Congressional District that lives in Jimmy Patronis’ head. The Jimmymander!

Surely this would have been the congressional plan if it wasn’t for gerrymandering. Is that what you meant Jimmy? Was this what we missed out on? Well if the Florida Supreme Court guts Fair Districts, you can lobby for this layout in the future. In the meantime, enjoy running in a district you don’t live. Maybe next time, just ignore the residency question when its asked.