Democrats managed to flip a seat in the Florida state house in the district that is home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Emily Gregory, a Democrat, defeated Republican Jon Maples, who had an endorsement from the US president, in the special election in Florida’s 87th state house district. The Associated Press called the race on Tuesday evening, with Gregory, a public health expert and small business owner, leading by more than 2 percentage points.
The Republican who previously held the seat had won by 19 percentage points in 2024.
Trump voted in the race via mail-in ballot, despite criticizing the practice as “mail-in cheating” during an event in Tennessee this week. The president has long attacked voting by mail, describing it as a scam and arguing it creates fraud in elections. He still opted to vote by mail in the race although he was recently in Palm Beach, where early in-person voting was under way until Sunday.
The president had urged voters to back Maples, a financial adviser who describes himself as an “America-First patriot”. Maples had faced scrutiny in recent weeks over allegations that he did not live in the district in which he was running, claims that he denied.
Democrats have said that Gregory’s win shows voters frustrated over rising costs are moving away from Trump and the Republican party.
“Mar-a-Lago just flipped red to blue, which should have Republicans sweating the midterms,” Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said on social media. “A Trump +11 district in his own backyard shouldn’t be in play for Democrats, but tonight proves Republicans are vulnerable everywhere.”
State Democrats have flipped some 29 districts since Trump’s election, Williams said.
314 Action, a political committee that works to get Democratic scientists elected to office, had endorsed Gregory and praised her win, writing in a statement that “a Stem wave is coming”.
“Emily won because Floridians trust her to make decisions based on evidence not ideology,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, the group’s president. “She’s bringing science back to the state house and heading to the [state] capitol on a mission to lower costs, restore health care and bring down the temperature in Tallahassee.”
