Florida to hold special elections on Tuesday to fill seats left vacant by Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz
The election is viewed as something of a litmus test to see what voters are thinking of the GOP agenda.
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The election is viewed as something of a litmus test to see what voters are thinking of the GOP agenda.
On Tuesday, voters in the Florida will decide who should fill two House seats that were previously held by Republicans in the state's sixth and first congressional districts. The election is viewed as something of a litmus test to see what voters are thinking of the GOP agenda.
National Security Advisor to the Trump administration, Mike Waltz, left his seat in the House in Florida's sixth congressional district to take up his role in Trump's Cabinet while former congressman Matt Gaetz left his seat in Florida's first district after resigning and then withdrawing his from his nomination as attorney general.
Currently, the GOP has a majority of 218 to 213 and there are four seats vacant in the House. Elise Stefanik, who had previously been nominated to be the ambassador for the US at the UN, had the nomination pulled by the Trump administration after worries over keeping the thin majority in Congress.
In the sixth district, Republican state Sen. Randy Fine is running against Democrat Josh Weil, who is looking for an upset and flip the seat blue in Congress. The district is on Florida's central coast ad has a large population of seniors as well as veterans. The election is taking place April 1, on Tuesday this week.
The race has become closer than expected, however, early polling indicates that the Republicans still have the edge in the election, Newsweek reported. Trump carried the district by 30 points, but the GOP tends to favor more in person voting on election day, so the margin may get wider.
Early voting closed on Friday, and Fine had a 9-point advantage over Weil. 47,403 Republicans turned out to vote early or by mail as opposed to 38,107 Democrats. There have been 13,766 independent votes cast in the election so far and 1,659 voters under third parties have voted.
In the first district, Republican Jimmy Patronis and Democrat Gay Valimont are running to fill Gaetz's seat in Congress. Valimont, a gun control activist, ran against Gaetz in November and was only able to get 34 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press.
The first district was won by Trump by 68 percent of the vote in 2024 and the Republican, Patronis, is viewed to be in a stronger position as opposed to Fine in the sixth district election.
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