DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Republicans in Florida on Wednesday celebrated winning two congressional special elections, including one expected to be a nail-biter that the GOP ended up winning comfortably. The outcomes bolster Republican control of Congress early in President Donald Trump’s term.
Despite national attention and big-name endorsements, both Democratic candidates in Florida’s special elections lost Tuesday by double-digit margins.
In what Republicans worried could be a close race, state Sen. Randy Fine – a firebrand conservative who often sparred with popular Gov. Ron DeSantis – beat the Democratic candidate and public school teacher, Josh Weil, by 14 points in the 6th Congressional District, which spans from St. Augustine to Daytona.
“They spent everything on that race,” state GOP chairman Evan Power said Wednesday in an interview with One America News Network. “What we saw yesterday was, people lined up, longer than the lines in November.” Power said voters in the district “wanted to send support for Trump in Washington.”
DeSantis on Wednesday didn’t hold back in his criticisms of Fine, saying Trump’s late intervention in the race helped save the outcome for Republicans. In a news conference in Ocala, DeSantis said, “The way he conducts himself, he repels people.” He added: “The president really had to bail him out at the end.”
On social media, Trump wrote, “Randy Fine wins!” moments before The Associated Press called the race at 7:30 p.m. Fine responded, “Because of you, Mr. President.I won’t let you down.”
“This was a victory for all of us,” Fine said to his watch party crowd at his GOP-adorned Ormand property.
Fine won with strong Republican turnout on Election Day, after Democrats showed unexpectedly good turnout in early and mail voting. Michael Waltz, who resigned the seat to become Trump’s national security adviser, won by 33 points in November.
“The president’s got the juice to get Republicans to go out and vote on Election Day and vote for a candidate they don’t like,” DeSantis said Wednesday.
After the outcome, Fine talked to supporters about his mother, who died five days before Trump requested the now congressman-elect run for the vacant seat. Fine said he learned how to fight from her and held up a memento from his first experience as a U.S. House page – a congressional plaque his mom bought with him at a D.C. stationery store.
He thanked a long line of Republican supporters, including Trump, Sen. Rick Scott, upcoming Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, conservative Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro – who joined Fine and Donalds for a joint telephone call with voters on the eve of election night – and U.S. House leaders Mike Johnson and Steven Scalise.
“I will be there tomorrow to help them,” he said.
Republicans feared losing their slim majority in the House if Florida’s special elections didn’t fall in their favor. After making public appearances for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, Elon Musk even tossed in $20,000 to the Florida Republicans.
Weil, a central Florida public school teacher, lives outside the district where he ran, which is legally permitted for federal elections. He raised just shy of $10 million, compared with Fine, whose campaign raised just over $900,000. As a newcomer to politics and the underdog, Weil’s surprise success gained national attention from progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and the Democratic National Convention chair, Ken Martin, who traveled to Florida days before the election to campaign on behalf of Weil.
Fine’s almost decade-long career in Florida politics and his close ties to Trump drew donors from across the state.
Allan Jacob, a Miami Beach physician, donated $6,600 to Fine’s campaign. Despite not living in the district, Jacob wanted to help his political party as a whole and make sure a Republican stayed in the seat. He first met Fine about nine years ago during his time as Teach FL’s chairman and gravitated to the congressman-elect’s advocacy for school choice. Fine’s stance as an outspoken Jewish representative who has branded himself as a fighter against evil also appealed to Jacob, who is also Jewish.
“I support his approach to dealing with anti-semitism on the state level,” Jacob said. “And I know that will be translated on a national level. He is not afraid to fight the battles.”
Another donor, Bradley Sloan, a Putnam County auto dealer, has supported candidates in the past, but said he largely avoids politics. But with the Republican majority in the House weighing on his district, he chipped in $6,600..
Turnout for special elections does not nearly match that of traditionally scheduled elections, so Weil’s multi-million dollar campaign flooded the district with campaign signs and enlisted a third party to hire campaigners to go door-to-door with Weil’s message.
Outside the government center in Flagler County, Bridget Lopez, 41, wore pink headphones and stood by the street waving one of Weil’s campaign signs and an American flag. The Bunnell resident called it her civic duty to get Weil’s name out there and remind passersby to vote, despite not being affiliated with Weil’s campaign team.
She attributed an absence of strong Democratic unity and low voter turnout to Democrat’s continuous election struggles in the district.
“They’re off living their lives, doing their thing,” she said. “People say, ‘Oh, I’m not into politics.’ Well, politics is a team. This is our life. This is our future.”
Weil addressed his supporters in Daytona Beach.
“The numbers didn’t add up in our favor today,” he said. “We shouldn’t be disappointed however, this race was closer than anyone ever imagined. In a district won by Mike Waltz by 32 points, we closed that gap by a historic margin.”
In the Panhandle, Florida’s chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis won the 1st Congressional District seat by almost 15 points to Democratic candidate, Gay Valimont. In an unusual outcome, Valimont won Escambia County – home to Pensacola – by 3 percentage points.
“I’m going to Washington to help President Trump battle against all this far left insanity…to buttress his strong moves to return common sense to America…to pull our country out of the ditch,” Patronis said in his acceptance speech.
Valimont lost by 32 points to former Rep. Matt Gaetz in November. She raised almost $6.5 million for her campaign.
“While the results were not what we hoped for, I am proud of the journey we’ve taken and the conversations I have had over the last 20 months,” Valimont’s campaign wrote in a statement. “This is hard, but this is how we change things, it takes time.”
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at sophia.bailly@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
