Issue 283: Ron DeSantis releases his "Screw Fair Districts" Congressional Map
DeSantis decides what laws apply
On Monday, Ron DeSantis released his long awaited Congressional plan. As predicted by everybody, the map was designed to be a Republican gerrymander that would add several new Republican seats for Florida. This was the latest state to redistricting amid the year-long “redistricting wars” saga that has gripped the nation.
DeSantis had already pushed a gerrymander through Florida back in 2022, drafting a map that created 20 Republican seats for just 8 Democratic seats.
DeSantis began laying the groundwork to redistricting way back in the summer of 2025. With the legislature asleep on the issue, it was clear that DeSantis himself would propose a map himself and that the legislature is likely to just sign off on such a plan with little debate.
Well the map is out, and the new layout shrinks Democrats to just four Congressional seat; a 4 seat gain for the GOP (at least based on Presidential data).
The plan has 24 districts that backed Donald Trump in 2024. Two of these districts, the 25th and 22nd, voted for Biden in the 2020 election, however. I’ll get into Democratic upset opportunities in a minute. However, the plan very likely adds some Republican seats for 2026. How the 2024 margins shifted in each district can be seen below.
The map achieves this extreme partisan goal by cracking and packing many parts of the state in aggressive ways. A handful of seats, namely in Miami-Dade and in North Florida, either see no change or very little.
No changes at all
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th
Very minor changes
21st, 27th, 28th
The central and upper-south part of the state are seeing dramatic changes, however.
The plan targets four Democratic incumbents for defeat. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor, Jared Moskowitz, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are all drawn into solid Trump districts. (Note due to a numbering change, Congresswoman Lois Frankel is in the 23rd, while Moskowitz lives in the 22nd).
I’ll dive into the issues for each of these targeted Democrats in a moment. First, lets look at DeSantis’ insane rational for this remap to begin with.
DeSantis Says “Fair Districts” are Invalid
If you have been following redistricting in Florida for any period of time, you know that Florida is different from several states in that it has its own mandates on redistricting. While many states allow partisan gerrymandering to be the norm, Florida has provisions that aim to limit the practice. The Fair Districts Amendments have two provisions in Florida’s Constitution.
Tier 1 - Ban on drawing lines to benefit a party or incumbent. Protection for minority-performing districts.
Tier 2 - Compactness and minimizing city/county splits
These amendments (one for Legislative lines and one for Congressional lines), we passed by the voters in 2010 ballot measures. I wrote about the campaigns for these measures here.
The amendments caused great headaches for Republicans in the 2010s. It eventually led to the Congressional (backstory here) and State Senate (backstory here) maps being forced into redraws in 2015 and 2016. The court cases there were a victory for protecting maps from partisan gerrymandering.
This has not always gone according to plan, as DeSantis was able to push through a gerrymander in 2022. See my review here for how all that happened. However, even as bad as the 2022 map was, it was not as bad as it could have been (as we see now based on this new draft) because DeSantis and Republicans were giving lip service to Fair Districts.
In a memo that was released with his Congressional plan, DeSantis claims that ALL of these Fair Districts provisions are void. DeSantis makes this claim with no court order, but rather insists based on potential future rulings. He namely ties things to the Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court case, which is testing the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. No ruling has come, but advocates like myself worry it may strike down the VRA’s provisions that protect minority communities in redistricting. The law protects racial and language minorities that could form a 50% seat from being divided up or packed too tightly to limit their influence. These same types of provisions have been repeated in the Fair Districts Amendments.
DeSantis insists that the Supreme Court is likely to rule against the VRA in the Callais decision. They may do this, but there is also no guarantee on if such a ruling will affect the state-level racial protection provisions like we see in the VRA.
For example, when the Supreme Court rejected arguments against getting involved in partisan gerrymandering debates several years back, they did affirm that states had a right to pass their own limits on the practice. The Court may hence say Congress can not regular race and redistricting, but states can.
DeSantis, of course, says otherwise and says that race and redistricting is wrong and should never be used. The memo directly states…
The use of race in redistricting should never happen.
DeSantis, who I have compared to George Wallace and declare I believe is a massive racist, clearly wants forgo any protections for racial communities. That does not surprise me. However, that is just where he starts. The key to the memo is that he has decided to declare Fair Districts’ racial provisions are by default invalid. In addition, he then declares that since the racial provisions in invalid, ALL OF FAIR DISTRICTS IS INVALID. The bans on partisan gerrymandering? Invalid. The compactness provisions? Invalid.
DeSantis had declared all of Fair Districts is invalid based on a hypothetical court ruling that we don’t have. That is why he had drafted a map that makes no secret about not following the fair districts provisions.
With that understood. Lets look at some key decisions made in the map.
Cracking the Hispanic Community
In his memo on redistricting, DeSantis insisted that the map is “race neutral.” However, one of the first changes to the map calls that entire notion into question.
In the area south or Orlando, with the goal of eliminating Darren Soto’s chances for re-election, the new plan cracks the Hispanic community into four or five different Congressional districts. These Hispanic voters are heavily Puerto Rican and and lean more Democratic; though have become a major swing group in recent elections.
The plan divides up Osceola County, which was whole in the 2022 Congressional plan, cleaving out part of its Hispanic voters into the Polk-based 18th. Additional Hispanic voters are added to the solid-red 11th and solid-blue 10th. This is textbook “cracking” of a racial minority. It is not race neutral, it is clearly deliberate.
The result of this is that Darren Soto’s 9th is no longer a Hispanic-majority seat. The district goes from 50% Hispanic to just 36% Hispanic with the new lines. As you can see below, the district stretches from the Democratic-heavy Osceola/Orange region and down into Glades County!
With this plan, Darren Soto would have a very tough time holding such a district. He is much stronger than other Democrats with Hispanic voters, but he has now lost a good deal of his base. As a result of this plan, Florida shrinks in the total number of Hispanic districts.
In his memo, DeSantis claimed the new map was needed to reflect changing demographics and politics in the state. Well the Hispanic community continues to grow in Florida, and he just kneecapped their political influence with this plan.
Absolutely racist and cynical proposal.
Cracking up Tampa Bay
Over in the Tampa Bay, DeSantis took aim at longtime Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor. Her solidly blue seat, designed to be a Democratic vote-sink in 2022, was carved up and left nothing by Republican-leaning districts.
There was real debate heading into the redistricting process about how much could be done in Tampa. The Democrats of the old 14th had to go somewhere, and it could put other Republicans at risk. However, with DeSantis disregarded compactness requirements with fair districts, the plan devised limits these issues.
The City of Tampa and its suburbs, the main block of Democratic votes, are carved up between three key districts; the 14th, 12th, and 15th. The 15th District goes all the way from solid-red Citrus County and into downtown Tampa itself.
Tampa is split up 3 ways, an increase from the 2-way split in the 2022 map. Such a division would likely violate fair districts, but as we discussed DeSantis is ignoring that. All these districts voted or Trump in 2020 and 2024. The 14th is the least red seat, backing Trump by 10% in 2024 but just by 3% in 2020. Castor would probably be strongest running there, but it will be a tough haul if she does run.
Further south, the heavily Democratic portion of St Pete, on the south end of Pinellas County, is taken into a Republican seat that includes Manatee, part of Sarasota, and the inland farm counties of DeSoto, Hardee, and part of Polk.
This district is likewise pretty steadily Republican; though its a more lighter shade of red. The seat backed Trump by 14% in 2024 and 5% in 2020. This is only a couple points less red than the current 16th.
Democratic Vote Sinks in Southeast Florida
Down in South Florida, DeSantis made serious efforts to target Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Jared Moskowitz for defeat. As many Democrats as possibly are crammed into three seats; the 20th, 23rd, and 24th.
The 20th and 24 will both be Black-performing seats thanks to being heavily blue and over 50% Black in Democratic Primaries.
The new 20th, which is now vacant after Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned, will be entirely within Broward County now. The district is 51% Black in a likely primary, but also has taken in a good deal of white Democrats to syphon them off from Moskowitz and DWS.
Meanwhile, down in south Broward and part of Miami-Dade, the 24th district, held by Fredericka Wilson, has been been drawn to gather as many Black voters as possible and free up space along the coast for a different district. This seat now has a solid 71% Black Democratic primary as result.
The 23rd, meanwhile, based in West Palm Beach, is solid blue and will be fine for Congresswoman Lois Frankel.
However, the rest of the Broward and Palm regions of South Florida are drawn with Trump-backing seats.
Targeting Moskowitz and DWS
With as many Democrats as possible crammed into three other seats, this leaves Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Shultz forces to play musical chairs for two Trump seats.
First we have the 22nd district, a crazy district that grabs voters in western Palm Beach and Broward, then moves west across sugarcane fields and Everglades land, to then grab Republican-aligned voters in Collier County.
This district, which in theory either Moskowitz or Shultz could run for, did back Biden by 3% in 2020, but swung to the right in the 2024 election. This is one of the Democrats best chances for a hold despite the new lines. However, it will depend on who the candidates are and broader trends in the midterm.
The strongest chance for Democrats to hold a gerrymandered seat is definitely the 25th. This district voted for Trump by 9% but also backed Biden by 5% in 2020. The seat is a coast-hugger that stretches all the way from Boca Raton and down into Miami-Beach. It is almost surely the most heavily Jewish district in the state; including Boca Raton, Dania Beach, Hallandale, Aventura, and Miami Beach.
I absolutely believe that Jared Moskowitz is the best candidate to run for this seat. He represents a good chunk of the northern section of this district already and can likely win back over many of the Jewish voters who swung to the right in the 2024 elections. I will surely be looking at this district in more detail soon.
Another note for Southeast Florida is the changes made to the 26th district. The seat in question, held by Mario Díaz-Balart, is heavily Cuban and Hispanic; stretching from Hialeah to Collier County. However, DeSantis made some notable changes with his plan, with the district now connecting Hialeah to the southwest end of Broward County. As a result, this district, which initial backed Trump by 34% in 2024, is now a Trump +18 seat.
The seat, even with the narrow Biden loss in 2020 (and Clinton won it in 2016) is still very likely to remain Republican. However, Balart has now suddenly found himself in a district he cannot entirely keep his eye off of.
Final Thoughts for Now
Over the next couple of days, Florida’s legislature is almost sure to pass the map. I will be looking at these districts more in the coming days. When it comes to projecting the 2026 midterms, I am going to track additional data, including recent voter registration trends and who decides to file where. FAR MORE is to come on this from myself.
We also surely will have lawsuits quickly filed. It is always possible, and cross your fingers, that the courts may put a hold on any such map as lawsuits progress. Now with the conservative courts, that is hardly a guarantee, so I’m not holding my breath. However, there is at least a chance.
Regardless of court movement, which I will be following, I will continue looking at these lines and have updates in the short future.