One of the nation’s top election prognosticators shifted three Florida races to safe Republican seats this election cycle. Two of those represent gains for the GOP in the U.S. House if the prediction holds true.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved Florida’s 4th, 7th and 28th Congressional Districts into its “Safe Republican” column. The model previously listed the seats as “Likely Republican,” thanks to an absence of any incumbent and changes brought about with a new congressional map.
That’s good news for U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez, a Miami Republican first elected in 2020 when he defeated Democratic incumbent Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spotlighted the seat as a front-line race, the political environment right now doesn’t offer reason for Giménez to worry, according to the Crystal Ball team.
Like all the Florida races shifted in this week’s forecast update, Giménez represents a seat where Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential Election.
“We’re moving several Trump-won seats that Democrats do not appear to have the bandwidth to compete for this cycle from Likely Republican to Safe Republican: the open seats FL-4 and FL-7, as well as the seats held by Reps. Carlos Giménez (R, FL-28) and Bryan Steil (R, WI-1),” wrote editor Kyle Kondik.
For the other Florida races, a shift from Florida’s new congressional map already placed the seats in jeopardy.
CD 7, represented now by Democrat Stephanie Murphy, was altered from a seat where Democrat Joe Biden won the Presidential Election by 10 percentage points to one Trump would have taken by more than 4.
Before the redistricting process even wrapped, Murphy announced she would not seek re-election this year. Eight Republicans qualified to run in the newly reconfigured district. So did four Democrats, but as of the second quarter, every Republican candidate raised more than the top Democrat in the race.
As for CD 4, the new map at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ demand eliminated a north Florida Black access seat represented now by Democrat Al Lawson and left CD 4 covering west Jacksonville but also including conservative Nassau County.
Lawson, based in Tallahassee, elected to run against Republican incumbent Neal Dunn in Florida’s 2nd Congressional District. About 52.6% of voters in the new CD 4 voted for Trump and 45.92% went for Biden, so the seat leans red even in neutral conditions.
But the overall environment simply looks terrible for Democrats.
“In a midterm environment such as this one, the opposition party has the clear advantage in terms of ‘nationalizing’ races, running on national themes like dissatisfaction with President (Joe) Biden (whose approval rating is languishing in the 30s) and issues such as inflation and gas prices,” Kondik wrote.
Managed by the University of Virginia and produced by Editor-in-Chief Larry Sabato, the election forecasts remain among the most closely watched in politics and could influence the decisions of national donors.
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