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.
Good point. District 87 is smaller.
That said, the former GOP incumbent won by less than 40 votes. It’s a very purple district.
Everything was redistricted in 2022 to attempt to keep a Republican majority. Not sure what District & election was that close, I’m not seeing it. Even if its purple there was an attmpt to gerrymander and this election broke it.
District 88 is Dem and it does appear they stole from that and attempted to route Palm Beach in to dilute it. It might be even more interesting of a win than I thought.