DeSantis Forging Ahead To Redraw Florida’s Map, Whether GOP Incumbents Like It Or Not

Despite Republican nervousness that an attempt to squeeze more GOP congressional seats out of Florida in the current political environment could backfire, Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing ahead to do exactly that.

“He has created such a mess,” said Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried, pointing out that Florida voters in 2010 inserted into the state Constitution a prohibition against political gerrymandering. “The members of Congress don’t want it. The legislators don’t want to waste time. They will be in depositions all summer.”

DeSantis’ office did not respond to HuffPost’s queries about the coming special session, which was supposed to begin Monday but was pushed back a week to April 28. He is doing so even though the purported rationale for the session — an anticipated U.S. Supreme Court ruling voiding a Voting Rights Act provision that has been used to design majority-Black districts, including in Florida — will almost certainly not be delivered until after the session concludes on May 1.

Friday was the last scheduled day for high court opinions until mid-May. Only a single decision was handed down, and it was not the Louisiana case that DeSantis believes will allow him to redraw Florida’s already aggressively gerrymandered map that gives Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats.

DeSantis’ push for mid-decade redistricting is the latest since President Donald Trump last year demanded that GOP-led states redraw maps to ensure that Republicans keep control of the House for the final two years of his term. Texas quickly complied, producing a map intended to give Republicans four additional seats, which then led California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to push through a voter initiative that would give his party five more seats. Virginia Democrats are backing a similar referendum on Tuesday that could produce four more Democratic seats in the state.

Actual Republican members of Florida’s House delegation, meanwhile, are less enthusiastic about a brand-new map coming out just weeks before the June qualifying deadline. A few have vocally expressed their opposition, while close to a half made a point of visiting Republican state lawmakers during the regular session earlier this year to privately lobby against it, said one top Florida Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity, adding that their desire for self-preservation has little chance against DeSantis’ presidential ambitions.

“It is believed he will be delighted politically if we lose the U.S. House, lose the U.S. Senate, and the last two years of Trump are tied up in impeachment drama,” he said, positing a scenario that could also hurt Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Maybe JD and Marco get tangled up in that. And he can emerge from that. ‘DeSantis Chaos Theory’ to the nomination.”

DeSantis ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination but dropped out after losing badly in the Iowa caucuses. He is expected to run again in 2028 and political consultants in both parties said that his push to produce more GOP seats in Florida will let him boast of his eagerness to fight Democrats, even if it results in Republican House members losing seats.

Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican consultant in Florida, said he is not sure that rationale makes sense.

“There is going to be so much stuff in the wind in ’28, both current and historical, with Vance and Rubio and whoever, that I cannot imagine a DeSantis-initiated redistributing scuffle in Florida in ’26 will even register with primary voters in Iowa or New Hampshire,” he said. “But never underestimate DeSantis’ lack of judgment.”

He added that DeSantis’ motive might be much simpler, with him leaving office at the start of 2027 because of term limits. “I would guess that it is to curry favor with Trump. The man is going to need a job in a few months,” Stipanovich said.

DeSantis’ use of his power to give his party as many seats as possible in the U.S. House is not new. In 2022, DeSantis threatened to veto a map crafted by state lawmakers that likely would have given Republicans a 16-12 advantage in the House delegation following the post-Census reapportionment that gave Florida one more House seat. He then vetoed a legislature-drawn map that would have given an 18-10 advantage.

He drew his own map and insisted that the legislature pass it, which wound up producing 20 GOP seats. That margin was determinative following the midterm elections that November, which failed to produce the “Red Wave” that Republicans had predicted would give them a large margin in the House. DeSantis’ four extra seats gave Republicans a thin majority in the House, which has gotten even thinner in the subsequent years because of resignations and special elections.

Indeed, Democrats’ success in recent months in special elections nationally and in Florida, reflecting Trump’s sinking popularity, is the reason why many state Republicans are wary of DeSantis’ plan. Even the existing map could prove a challenge for some GOP members seeking reelection. Redrawing district lines in an attempt to further increase the Republican advantage could have the opposite effect, particularly if, as many Republicans fear, November brings a Democratic wave.

In any event, that the session is taking place less than seven months before those midterm elections could doom a new map, even if DeSantis manages to get it through the legislature. Legal challenges are almost certain to follow, including one from Republican nemesis Marc Elias, a Democratic elections lawyer, who has already vowed to fight it.

“Florida will pass a new map, and they are definitely going to get sued, and they’re going to lose,” he said last year when the idea was first broached.

His office said Friday that he stands by that pledge.