Democrat Emily Gregory narrowly won the special election for the district Tuesday night, The Associated Press projects. Trump carried the area in 2024.
Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election Tuesday for the Florida state House district that includes Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, flipping the seat from Republican control, The Associated Press projects.
Gregory beat Republican Jon Maples, whom Trump endorsed, in the race for a seat that has been vacant since August, when Mike Caruso resigned from the Legislature and was appointed Palm Beach County clerk.
Gregory had 51% of the vote to 49% for Maples with all precincts reporting.
Democrats have performed well in special elections during Trump’s second term, with the party pointing to those results as a sign of strength ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Florida’s 87th District is the 10th GOP-held state legislative seat Democrats have flipped around the country since Trump took office again last year. Republicans have not flipped any Democratic state legislative seats during that time.
And yet people need an iota of hope after ten years of hearing about and talking about the worst president in American history. Someone who truly deserves to be compared to Hitler. Yeah, we’ve (reasonably) been so depressed about this shit we fucking need the tiniest sliver of hope. Is it really that dangerous to have any?
One theory for why Trump won is that he was so ridiculous that a lot of democrats thought there was no way he could win, so they stayed home on election day. I don’t know if that’s true exactly, but I know that democracy requires participation and traditionally the more people who actually vote in an election, the greater likelihood of a democratic win.
So yeah, I stand by my caution against complacency. No election is going to win itself, or win other elections, as implied by the dominoes metaphor. Our country will continue deteriorating until people who care actually fight, for real, in a prolonged, sustainable way. The other side never stops fighting.
I agree. I’m just not sure celebrating one small win counts as complacency.
Edit: according to the angry downvoter, constant rage for 12+ years without any break is the only thing that keeps one from being “complacent”. It sure has helped us so far. We all know that trump won in 2024 not by mobilizing racists and confusing struggling people. Not that, it was because we laughed at some trump memes after he lost in 2020.
I still say he could never win. No one in their right mind would vote for him. Any party that nominated him can only blame themselves for losing. But of course I voted. Always vote.
And he’s been even worse than the unelectable fooli thought he was, so WTF, people. But always vote