Our congressional vulnerability list has shrunk. This is the eighth election cycle the Tampa Bay Times has ranked the U.S. House seats in Florida most vulnerable to a party switch; it’s our first look at the state of Florida’s House races since May....
We have placed four races in the “Potentially Vulnerable” category: The seats held by Republican Reps. Anna Paulina Luna of Pinellas County; Laurel Lee of Hillsborough, Pasco and Polk counties; and Maria Elvira Salazar of Miami; plus the seat held by Democratic Rep. Darren Soto of greater Orlando.
We have placed one incumbent in our lowest vulnerability category, “Minimally Vulnerable” — Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Miami.
It may seem odd that four of these five races are in GOP-held districts, given how red the state has become. But that’s an artifact of the post-2020 Census redistricting, in which Florida Republicans spread GOP-leaning voters across a wide range of districts rather than placing them in a smaller number of districts to produce wider margins.
Meanwhile, three seats held by Democrats now seem solid enough for the incumbent that they have fallen off our vulnerability list, joining the state’s other 20 House seats that are not competitive. The three seats newly off the list are held by Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz of Broward and Palm Beach counties; Lois Frankel of Palm Beach County; and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Broward County.
Here’s a rundown of the five races still on our list...
...Lee, who served as Florida’s appointed secretary of state before winning her congressional seat, won a competitive GOP primary in 2022 and then won the general election by an 18-point margin. But as recently as 2020, Trump won the district by 3 points.
Lee survived her GOP primary this year with ease despite initial friction from Trump, who criticized her on Truth Social, possibly triggered by her earlier support for Gov. Ron DeSantis for president.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Kemp, who is term-limited, is the Democrat challenging Lee. Kemp previously worked for U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor when Castor was in local politics. Lee reported having more than eight times the amount Kemp did through the end of July, but the Democrat released an internal poll showing her within three points of the incumbent.
Source: Tampa Bay Times
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