Gov. Ron DeSantis released his proposed newly redrawn map of the state’s congressional districts on Monday, one that aims to add four Republican leaning seat to the 20 (out of 28) already represented by Republicans in Florida.
The governor released the map first to Fox News before sending to lawmakers an hour later.
“They are erasing Democratic representation all across the state,” House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell said in a Zoom conference call. “It’s clearly so partisan. They are contorting the data, they are contorting the Constitution, to try to do this.”
Florida’s Fair District Amendments say that no individual district can be drawn “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.”
However, DeSantis claims in a letter sent by his general counsel to Florida lawmakers that federal protections for minority-access districts are likely unconstitutional and that the state’s anti-gerrymandering laws should be bypassed.
“The people of Florida have been deprived of appropriate representation in the U.S. House of Representatives,” wrote David Axelman, the general counsel for Gov. DeSantis.
“Despite substantial population growth since the 2010 census, which catapulted Florida to the third most populous state in the nation, Florida gained only one additional seat in the House after the 2020 census. However, a post-census survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau demonstrated that Florida was shortchanged by more than 760,000 people. This undercount cost Florida at least one additional House seat.”
The governor’s office also contends in his letter that Florida’s existing congressional map “has been distorted by considerations of race,” referring to language in the Fair District Amendments requiring that “districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice.”
The letter specifically cites Congressional District 20 in South Florida as drawn in 2022 to conform with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
“The proposed congressional map that the [Executive office of the Governor] now submits does not take race into consideration at all,” says the letter. “Race was neither a predominant factor nor one of many factors. And because race was never considered, the map also makes no attempt to adhere to the race-based requirements of the [Fair District Amendments]. Because those provisions require consideration of race in the drawing of congressional districts, they cannot satisfy strict scrutiny and are unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Awaiting SCOTUS ruling
For months, DeSantis has insisted the Legislature would be “forced” to redistrict because of an expected ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case from Louisiana. The court will determine whether Section 2 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act remains constitutional. The section bans voting laws or procedures that deny or abridge voting rights due to a person’s “race or color” or membership in a language minority.
However, the court has yet to rule, motivating DeSantis to say earlier this month that the impending decision was only “one” of the reasons to redistrict, and quickly pivoted to the idea that the state’s congressional lines should be updated to more accurately reflect the growth in population over the past five years.
“What I’ve said was, Florida has experienced 10 years’ worth of population growth in, like, three [years],” he said.
Driskell said DeSantis is jumping the gun, guessing that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the VRA when it has not done that yet.
“DeSantis is not implementing a ruling, he is gambling on one,” she said. “He’s asking Florida to do what he wishes the Supreme Court would say until waiting to find out what it will actually say. The Constitution is not a betting slip. The governor of the third largest state in the country should not be redrawing 28 congressional districts on a guess about what nine justices might do months from now.”
Florida’s population did increase by 8.24% from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2024, more than any other state in the country, according to a report by the U.S. Census published in June 2025.
However, the map the governor sent to the Legislature will not reflect updated population numbers, since the Census has not conducted an update since then. That’s despite calls by Desantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to do so. They contend Florida (and five other red states) were undercounted in that 2020 Census.
Meanwhile, voting rights groups and Democrats are blasting DeSantis’ new map.
“It is clear that the end goal in this state is to redraw maps in order to give one party an advantage over another, essentially putting partisan politics over the voters,” said Brad Ashwell, Florida director of All Voting is Local Action.
“What’s even more egregious is that this move is in direct conflict with the Fair Districts ballot amendments these same voters approved by a supermajority in 2010, meaning our governor and lawmakers are directly undermining our state Constitution and the will of the voters.”
“This map is an absolutely unlawful violation of the Florida Constitution,” Central Florida Democratic Rep. Darren Soto said on X. “The Legislature should reject it. The courts should strike it down. That being said, there are 12+ seats that Democrats could still win under this map in this cycle.”
According to Dave Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst with the Cook Political Report, Soto, Tampa Bay area Rep. Kathy Castor, and South Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz are the Democrats most imperiled by the new map.
‘Don’t do it’
Florida is likely the last state that will engage in a mid-decade redistricting since nearly a year ago when President Donald Trump urged the undertaking as he considered the possibility that Republicans could fall into the minority in Congress for the final two years of his second term in office.
After Texas became the first state to pass a new redistricting map designed to add five Republican U.S. House seats in last August, the president boasted, “[O]n our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. Texas never lets us down. Florida, Indiana, and others are looking to do the same thing.”
Again, Republicans already hold 20 of the state’s 28 congressional districts. But with Florida Democrats finally showing some life as Trump’s approval ratings fade, several Republican House members have voiced concern about the wisdom of such an effort.
“Don’t do it. I’ve said it from the beginning,” Florida U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster said earlier this year. “I’ve been around enough reapportionments to know it’s a slippery slope.”
Former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove has said the GOP efforts could cost the Republicans some seats this fall. “They’re going to have to take Republican votes out of Republican districts and put them into Democrat districts,” he said last week.
Two Florida congressional Republicans told the Phoenix Saturday that they aren’t too concerned about what might take place this week.
“We’ll see that they come up with,” said Byron Donalds, who is giving up his congressional seat in Southwest Florida as he runs for governor.
“I happen to be one of the few [members of Congress] that holds my word with my voters and they trust me,” said Pinellas County Republican Anna Paulina Luna.
Florida voters have repeatedly said in public opinion polls that they do not support redistricting mid-decade. A survey of 2,300 registered voters in Florida conducted by University of Florida political science professor Dan Smith released last week found that nearly two-thirds of respondents (65%) did not agree that “states should be able to redraw congressional district boundaries between censuses.”
An Emerson College survey earlier this month found that 56% thought it was a “bad idea” to redraw the congressional map this year.
“They’re not allowed to use the partisan data,” DeSantis said in Tampa in December when asked by a reporter about the Legislature’s intent in creating a new congressional map.
The Florida lawmakers voting on the DeSantis-designed map have been cautious about commenting publicly in advance. Senate President Ben Albritton recently reminded his members that “significant litigation has followed passage of new maps,” and that “we can only consider thoughts and feedback in keeping with constitutional standards.”
Pinellas County Republican Sen. Nick DiCeglie politely waved off discussing redistricting when approached by a Phoenix reporter on Saturday, saying he had nothing to comment on until he sees a new map.
Three seats
Published reports have speculated that DeSantis hopes to net three more Republican seats, but Pinellas County Republican Executive Committee Chair Adam Ross said it is difficult to tell whether Republicans should be excited or concerned.
“There’s all this speculation. I think it’s getting everybody’s anxiety really up but, until we actually see several proposals that they can debate on, I just tell everybody, ‘Calm down and wait until we see before we start reacting. Let’s not react until we actually know what the maps look like,’” he said Saturday during a Donalds campaign event on Treasure Island.
“I think that gerrymandering is a very bad thing,” Ross added, contending that’s what happened in Virginia last week but won’t be the case in Florida.
Virginia voters narrowly approved a referendum on April 21 that could result in a congressional map that moves Democrats from a 6-5 edge to potentially a 10-1 shift (the Virginia Supreme Court planned oral arguments Monday over whether state lawmakers properly convened to set up the redistricting referendum).
Democrats insist Florida’s will be an illegal gerrymander.
“Florida Republicans are preparing to redraw their already gerrymandered map. Let me make that clear: They want to put a gerrymander on top of a gerrymander and potentially steal up to five additional seats in the midterms this fall,” former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week.
Holder chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an organization that fights congressional gerrymandering.
A coalition of voting and civil rights groups calling themselves “No Partisan Maps” (including Equal Ground, Common Cause, and Florida Rising) are organizing buses from Orlando, Jacksonville, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Kissimmee, and the Villages to come to the Capitol Tuesday to register their opposition to the congressional redistricting effort.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
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