Analysis shows aggressive Republican redistricting in Florida would put more GOP seats at risk

A leading GOP consultant in Florida says that redrawing congressional districts right now probably wouldn’t help Republicans. In fact, a more aggressive approach could put three Republican-held seats in real danger.

Alex Alvarado wrote in an analysis for the Civic Data and Research Institute that, according to modeling, aggressive redistricting would raise the number of competitive seats from four to seven but wouldn’t give Republicans any net gain.

The memo comes as the Republican-led Legislature gets ready for a Special Session called by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Despite past disagreements between the Legislature and the Governor, many GOP lawmakers expect House and Senate leaders to let DeSantis decide what the new districts will look like.

DeSantis hasn’t shared a specific map yet. Lawmakers are set to meet in Tallahassee on April 20. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has pushed GOP-led states to redraw districts to try to increase the number of Republican seats in the U.S. House.

However, Alvarado’s memo suggests that changing the district lines now would actually hurt Republicans.

At-risk seats

The consultant says that looking at election results from 2018 to 2024, when Florida shifted from a swing state to a solid Republican one, shows the GOP’s advantage mostly comes from strong individual candidates.

He wrote, “Aggressive redistricting strategies aimed at maximizing Republican seat count may paradoxically increase Republican vulnerability to adverse electoral conditions.”

Republicans now hold 20 of Florida’s 28 U.S. House seats. But much of that success depends on incumbents doing especially well, especially with voters who aren’t registered with any party.

He pointed out several Republican-held districts where incumbents helped the party do better with voters who aren’t tied to a major party. The clearest example is U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart’s District, where he outperforms the party’s baseline by almost 11 percentage points. Alvarado estimates that Díaz-Balart consistently wins over more than 31% of voters with no major party affiliation.

He wrote, “Redistricting inherently reduces or eliminates these advantages through new boundaries, incumbent displacement, and loss of constituent service benefits.”

The problem is that redistricting would force even strong incumbents to campaign in areas where voters aren’t familiar with their records. So, even though Díaz-Balart does well with independent and Republican voters now, there’s no guarantee that voters in a new District would see him as anything other than a typical Republican candidate.

This might not be a big issue for Díaz-Balart’s seat. Still, Alvarado sees three Republican incumbents whom Democrats are already targeting. They have an edge now, but could lose it if the map changes.

Red to purple

Alvarado highlights recent Special Election results covering parts of four districts already targeted by one or both parties. These include the district of Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz and those of Republican U.S. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Laurel Lee, and Cory Mills.

Under the current map, voters with no party in Moskowitz’s district leaned Democratic by almost five points in 2024, but that margin may have dropped to less than four points recently. Still, the seat is seen as competitive.

But in the Republican-held seats, the changes are more dramatic. In Luna’s district, voters went from leaning Republican by nearly 10 points to leaning Democratic by about 7 points. Lee’s district shifted from a 12-point Republican lead to a 30-point Democratic one, and Mills’ district went from a 13-point Republican lead to almost a 26-point Democratic preference. This puts all three Republicans at serious risk, though each is currently running as an incumbent.

Alvarado wrote, “These four districts would become tossup or flip Democratic without incumbency protection — exactly what the Special Elections demonstrated.”

Even worse, redistricting could make some districts competitive that neither party currently sees as battlegrounds.

New landscape

Alvarado sees just four competitive races in Florida with the current map, assuming all current incumbents run again. That means Republicans would be defending three seats and trying to win one.

But if Republicans go for an aggressive gerrymander — some activists want up to five more seats where Trump won a majority — it could actually backfire badly in November.

According to Alvarado, Democrats would still have eight safe seats — the same as now — while seven seats would become tossups. Even a map designed just to protect at-risk Republican incumbents would likely make every Democratic seat safer, leaving Republicans to defend three competitive districts.

Alvarado says the real issue is that the current map, designed and signed by DeSantis in 2022, already concentrates Democrats into a small number of districts.

“Safe Democratic districts already run D+24 to D+41. There are minimal Democratic voters left to crack without creating new Democratic seats,” the memo states.

The problem with redrawing the map is that making any Democratic seat weaker means adding more Democrats to Republican-held districts. This could also add more swing voters — many of whom voted Republican in 2024 but might shift left if things get tough for Republicans this year.

Growing anxiety

The tough environment for Republicans may be causing real worry among Trump supporters as November approaches, and Alvarado’s analysis supports that. He thinks Democrats could gain two to four seats in Florida under the current map if it’s a good year for them. But with an aggressive GOP map, Democrats could flip seven to ten seats.

These findings are likely to increase anxiety among Republican analysts who are already wary of redistricting.

“In the absence of racial protection, districts shall be compact,” a Republican consultant said. “If you nuke minority districts, then they must be compact. Well, if you draw compact, you’re going to make a bunch of Republican seats that much more competitive.”

“All I’m saying is, they had a great map. I was a huge fan of their map; it used a great legal strategy.”

The strategist noted that language on minority District protections and compactness in Justice Barbara Parienta’s 2016 Florida Supreme Court ruling, which tossed a Republican-favoring map, helped make a map where the GOP held the statistical edge. That resulted in Republicans netting four more seats in Florida in 2022 alone.

Another strategist who works with Republican campaigns said that redrawing the map would mainly benefit those who profit from having more districts in the state’s Primary or General Election contests.

“This is a GOP consultant’s dream come true,” the strategist said. “That’s the only thing this is good for. From wearing a Republican hat, this is only good for consultants.”

Inevitable nonetheless?

Still, as the Special Session approaches, it seems more likely that lawmakers will approve a map as aggressive as DeSantis wants.

DeSantis hasn’t shared a specific map yet, but he has said any new map should assume the U.S. Supreme Court will deliver a conservative ruling in the ongoing Louisiana v. Callais case. That decision could end the Voting Rights Act’s rules protecting majority-minority districts, and it could come as early as this week.

Three Republican lawmakers involved in the process expect that, despite disagreements over the past year and a half between DeSantis and House Speaker Daniel Perez, both want a new map that favors Republicans — and so does Trump. One lawmaker said that unless there’s chaos at the start of the Special Session, the Legislature will probably approve a GOP-leaning map quickly.

But as more analysis is released, it becomes more likely that lawmakers will push for a different approach.