Dem 47
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GOP 53
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Florida Likely to Replace House Trumpers with Different Trumpers

Matt Gaetz was very Trumpy when he was representing FL-01 in Congress. Now, he works for an obscure cable channel. Michael Waltz was very Trumpy when he was representing FL-06 in Congress. Now, he is the National Security Adviser. Yesterday, Floridians headed to the polls to choose nominees for the special elections to fill those seats. And Republican voters picked two very Trumpy Republicans as their preferred replacements for the two departed Trumpy Republicans.

In FL-01, which is R+19, the GOP nominee will be Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. A couple of years ago, he tried to get the legislature to write a check for $5 million to Donald Trump, to help cover legal bills. This was, of course, before Trump was a convicted felon. Otherwise it would probably have been $10 million. In FL-06, which is R+14, the GOP nominee will be state Sen. Randy Fine. He is the only Jewish Republican in the Florida state legislature, and is very pro-Israel and very anti-LGBTQ and anti-Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Both winners had Trump's endorsement yesterday, and both defeated their nearest challenger by more than 50 points.

The Democratic candidate in FL-01, for what it is worth, is Gay Valimont, who was unopposed yesterday. Her signature issue is gun control, which is not likely to play well in a ruby red, substantially rural district. The Democrat in FL-06 is Josh Weil, who is a public school teacher, and who proudly brands himself as a Florida Progressive Democrat. He is also a perennial candidate, having run for Congress at least two times previously. As with Valimont, the fit here, between candidate and district, is not too good.

As we point out every time we write about special elections, sometimes they produce very unusual results. So, you can't be 100% sure what will happen when Florida voters cast their ballots on April 1. But you can probably be 99.8% sure that the two Republicans will win, and Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) margin for error will get a tiny bit larger. (Z)



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