Two weeks ago, Florida held three special elections for legislative districts. All three of this districts backed Trump in the 2024 election but saw a great deal of attention in an era of Democrats outperforming in special elections across the country. None of the three seats up: Senate 14, House 51, and House 87, were deep red, instead ranging from Trump +7 to Trump +13. The location of each seat can be seen below.
Two of these districts were of special note. House District 87 covered the Mar-a-Lago resort that Donald Trump claims as his residence. Meanwhile State Senate District 14 was the seat held by Jay Collins, who Ron DeSantis tapped to become Lt Governor in 2025. Collins is currently running for Governor this year in the Republican primary.
Democrats believed their best opportunity for a pickup lied in House 87, with its suburban district dynamic and a very strong Democratic candidate. Senate 14 was seen as an uphill climb due to the Republican Party forces outspending Democrats 10 to 1 in the race. House 51, meanwhile, was a sleeper race expected to easily remain in Republican hands. If you want more backstory on each race, check out my election preview article.
Democrats went into election day holding out hope they would flip House 87. It was a tossup to be sure, and election day turnout would be closely watched. Few expected a Democratic victory in Senate 14.
However, once the results started to come in, the night quickly became a joyous one for Florida Democrats as early voting data showed flips of HD87 and SD14 were both in the cards. As the red-leaning election day vote came in, neither early Democratic lead was fully erased. In the end, Democrats flipped both HD87 and SD14!
In addition to these wins, despite virtually no money being spent in HD51, that district saw a swing to the left as well. The latest specials continued a streak of Florida Democrats outperforming special elections since 2025. The full list of specials and their swings from 2025 to Present in Florida can be seen below.
These results were especially impressive considering the partisan makeup of the vote cast. Thanks to each district have a Republican registration lead, the final vote cast was Republican-heavy in each contest. The Democratic candidate wins in HD87 and SD14 came despite Republicans holding a 9% lead in ballots cast.
These wins came not because Democrats had crazy strong turnout compared to the Republicans. No, these wins came thanks to NPA voters breaking heavily for Democrats. It also likely involves several moderate Republicans opted to cast their ballots for the Democratic candidate.
This article will look at each special election result and what notable trends stand out in the data.
House District 87
As mentioned, House District 87 was seen as the biggest prize for Florida Democrats on election night. The district, which includes the suburbs and exurbs in Jupiter to its north and stretches down Palm Beach’s coast, is home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Democrats had a strong candidate in local businesswoman Emily Gregory, who raised $400,000 for her bid. Republican Jon Maples, who likewise raised around $400,000 , had extensive party backing; with countless mailers flooding the district. Democrats, however, were heavily backing the Gregory campaign as well, making it a high profile and expensive contest.
This Democratic flip came despite the fact the district still leaned Republican in votes cast. With a Republican registration advantage of 13%, Republicans would always lead in vote cast. The question was how much could Gregory outperform the partisanship of the vote. The final vote cast was GOP +9%.
Democrats led in getting their voters out to the polls; holding 37% turnout while Republicans got 32% to show up. However, thanks to the large Republican registration lead, the final vote was still 46% Republican to 36% Democratic. A partisan divide on voting method remained strong in this district, with Democrats leading in mail ballots and Republicans leading in in-person voting.
Btw, Donald Trump, who loves to attack mail-in voting, cast his ballot BY MAIL in this special election.
Despite Trump’s vote, Emily Gregory secured a 2% win for Democrats in House 87.
The swing in the district was a 13 point shift to the LEFT. Several communities swung over 20 points. Only a few precincts moved to the right. This did include the precinct of the Mar-A-Lago resort.
The fact that the Mar-A-Lago precinct (which includes not just the resort but other residencies as well) didn’t swing left may give Trump fans some comfort. Perhaps nothing could have been worse than the precinct itself flipping blue. This was never going to happen, however, due to how red the area is. In fact, the Maples over-performance came thanks to Trump being a historically WEAK Republican in his own precinct.
When Trump won his precinct in 2024, he did several points worse than other Republicans on the ballot, including Senator Rick Scott and Republicans running for county offices. The Maples showing is more about the precinct reverting to its normal deep-red nature; though Maples did not do as well as Senator Scott did.
This was the most likely Democratic gain, but it was always a tossup until the final moments. However, as it became clear the district had flipped, Democrats could breath a sign of relief that they had one win under their belt for the night.
But as as Senate 14 was continuing to count, suddenly a second Democratic flip came into focus.
Senate District 14
Few expected that Republicans would not hold onto Senate District 14. On paper, the district was less Republican than House District 87; having voted for Biden by 4% and then flipping to Trump by 7% in 2024. The district is also home to a sizeable Hispanic minority; almost half of whom are Cubans and who swung decidedly to the right in the last election. However, we have seen Hispanic voters swing back to the Democrats in recent elections in 2025; including the Miami Mayoral Election.
On paper, a Democratic win by winning back many of the Hispanics that voted for Biden in 2020 and making some modest gains with white suburbanites was possible. However, this race, more than any other, saw massive financial disparities between the two sides.
On the Democratic side was Brian Nathan, a first time candidate for office. Nathan and the local Democratic clubs worked as much of a grassroots campaign as possible while raising around $100,000 for the contest. Florida Democratic forces, much more strapped on cash, had to focus on the fight for HD87.
The Republicans, meanwhile, had no shortage of money for their candidate, State Representative Josie Tomkow. As the preferred candidate of the Florida Senate Republicans, Tomkow, who held HD51 in Polk County, was tapped to cross counties and run in Senate 14. Her campaign was awash in support from Florida lobbyists and businesses; all eager to get in good with the supposed heir to the seat. Republicans spent at least $1,000,000 on the race. This meant Brian Nathan was outspent at least 10 to 1 in the contest. As longtime Florida reporter Matt Dixon laid out, there was no shortage of lobbyists and prominent power players working to make nice with Tomkow - all assuming she would win the race.
Republicans were optimistic heading into election day as well. The absentee vote heading into election day was a virtual tie and in-person early voting had been solidly Republican. Then Election Day proved to be solidly red-leaning. While both parties had near even turnout, right around 32%, this left Republicans with a 9.2% point vote cast lead; slightly up from their 7.6% registration lead.
The final vote cast, being 9.2% GOP, was redder than the 6.8% lead from the 2024 election. This was a product of registration changes, something I discussed more in my preview article. As the polls closed, it certainly seemed like Republicans was poised to hold this district.
The Florida political world was in for a shocker when, after all the ballots were counted, Democrat Brian Nathan edged out Josie Tomkow by just 400 votes.
Nathan’s win, coming amid a GOP +9 electorate and a Republican candidate with everything going for her, was a true testament to voter sentiment at this time. Like in HD87, the Democrats could only win such a race with massive NPA support and a likely chunk of moderate Republicans.
Nathan improved on Harris across most of the district. Only a handful of precinct saw Tomkow out-perform Trump.
One item many wanted to know was how the Hispanic vote shifted in this race. Now we don’t have the final voter list yet to see how Hispanic the vote cast was'; so any analysis should be taken with some margin of error. However, I did look at the shift in the vote in the most heavily Hispanic areas of the district.
Precincts that are over 45% registered Hispanic (17 in total) saw the vote go from Trump +12% in 2024 to Nathan +1% in 2026
The most heavily Hispanic precincts in the Lake-Leto region, which are also heavily Cuban, went from Trump +20% to Tomkow +9%.
Regardless of your method or criteria, there was a clear Democratic shift in the Hispanic community of the district. However, as I said, we should wait for the final voter list to re-run the analysis to account for turnout dynamics.
This upset win shocked the Florida Republican Party far more than the result in HD87 did. That race was at least always seen as a tossup. Republicans were quietly much more confident in Senate 14. They had a rude awakening about where voter sentiment truly is that night.
House District 51
The last of our special elections, as mentioned, was the forgotten race over in Polk County. House 51, the seat Tomkow vacated to run in Senate 14 (in another county) was the most Republican seat up that night. It backed Trump by 13% in 2024.
The race for this seat was an incredibly quiet affair. Republican Hillary Holly had been hand-picked by Republicans to run for the seat. She easily raised $120,000 and the Republicans spent several hundred thousand more just to make sure no shockers happened. Democrats ran Edwin Perez, a former city commission candidate who filed to ensure the party had a name for the race. Perez did not have any major fundraising base and brought in under $20,000. He did what he could to campaign in the district but it was a shoe-string campaign.
The quiet nature of the race led to very low turnout for the race. Just 12% of voters showed up; with Republicans having a modest turnout lead.
The final vote cast in the district was 15% GOP, far ahead of the 8% GOP it was in 2024. By all accounts, this district could have seen a swing to the right.
However, despite the red electorate, Hilary Holley beat Perez by just 8.4%, notably down from the 2024 results.
Perez won back several precincts in the Davenport and Haines City area; all communities that have large Hispanic registration vote shares.
The Hispanic vote here is much more heavily Puerto Rican than it is Cuban. These heavily Hispanic precinct had the largest swings to the left in this special election; swinging between 15% and 30% to the Democrats.
Similar to the story with Senate 14, we don’t have the final vote cast list yet. However, using registration data, this is the key takeaway on Hispanic voters in the district.
In the precincts with over 40% Hispanic registration, Perez won the vote by 19%. Those same precincts backed Harris by just 1% in 2024.
Just like with Senate 14, House 51 saw a sizeable swing with Hispanic voters.
Final Thoughts
The special election wins were a much-needed boost for Florida Democrats. Coupled with the Miami Mayor race last year, these wins will further aid Democrats in the sunshine state with raising money and showing important sings of life. No these special results cannot predict the future. These were lower turnout races and specials are not always predictive of general elections.
However, for Democrats in Florida, who face massive financial disparities to the Republicans, wins like these give much needed signs of confidence to big and grassroots donors, as well as national groups that may decide “hey that Congressional race might be worth investing in.”
It should also give Florida Republicans pause about their redistricting plans…… but on that front I guess we shall see what happens in a few weeks time.