TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — With a razor skinny GOP majority within the Home, this yr’s particular elections certain are particular, with each events saying this can be an important vote Floridians will ever make in a congressional race.
Voters headed to the polls Tuesday in components of the state to elect two new members of Congress.
Particular elections are being held to fill the seats of Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz.
Gov. Ron DeSantis weighed in on what he believes would be the final result.
“Look, these are so overwhelmingly Republican districts that I feel it is bodily inconceivable for somebody so long as you place an R by your identify to not win,” mentioned DeSantis. “I do not suppose if there may be an underperformance that it is a referendum on the president; I feel if the president was on the poll, he would win by 30 once more.”
Republicans in D.C. want to add two extra seats to their home majority in Florida Congressional Districts 1 and 6. Democrats, nevertheless, stay optimistic that they’ll flip the pink districts blue.
“The whole nation is watching Wisconsin and their state Supreme Courtroom race, and so they’re watching the 2 districts right here in Florida and so they’re doing that as a result of they’re attempting to take that temperature of whether or not or not Donald Trump and Elon Musk placing his thumb on the dimensions together with his heavy investments via his pack and his private contributions to state events and whether or not they can actually transfer elections,” mentioned Tara Newsom, Political Analyst, St. Pete school.
Newsom added that these particular elections introduced each conservative and liberal investments, with Democrats over-funding their GOP candidates.
“I feel that you just’re already seeing an underperformance in each of those districts to the truth that Donald Trump needed to take an hour out of his time this week to do phone calls into these congressional districts as a result of they noticed that if the truth is, they hadn’t performed that, they had been going to utterly lose,” mentioned Nikki Fried, Chair, Florida Democrats.
8 On Your Facet adopted up with each Republican candidates within the congressional races and requested them in the event that they thought their rivals might flip the pink district blue.
“We’ll know tonight, however I am fairly optimistic that that is MAGA nation. That is Trump nation. President Trump’s troops are going to point out up immediately. We will put up a giant quantity tonight and we’ll go to Washington and stand behind the president,” mentioned Randy Positive, (Republican CD-6 candidate).
Whereas it could seem like “MAGA nation” in Districts 1 and 6, is the Republican margin of success going to be eroded by the elevated Democratic funding? Former Chief Monetary Officer and GOP candidate Jimmy Patronis thinks not.
“President Trump received the vast majority of the favored vote, the electoral vote. And that is precisely what’s taking place in northwest Florida. We will ship Jimmy Patronis to Congress, and we’ll ‘Make America Nice Once more,'” mentioned Patronis.
President Donald Trump made it clear the stakes are excessive, and time will solely inform if these efforts on the bottom right here within the sunshine state are sufficient for Democrats or Republicans to go to D.C