Blue Waves, Red Flashing Lights: Florida’s Special Election Stunner

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by MARK POWELL

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Color is the dominant theme in politics this week, with the exact hue depending on the party.

Buoyed by a pair of legislative pickups in president Donald Trump’s backyard in Florida, Democrats are confident a blue wave is building for November’s midterm elections. Meanwhile, Republicans – while holding their chins up and keeping a stiff upper lip in public – are talking incessantly behind closed doors about a coming bloodbath.

“Red danger signs are flashing in overdrive like it’s the final minutes before the Chernobyl meltdown,” a Washington, D.C.-based GOP political strategist glumly conceded. 

And it’s due in no small part to a mom of three many folks had never heard of until Tuesday night…

State legislative elections don’t attract much attention. Most special elections fly under the radar, too. Throw in a rash of national headlines tied to a potentially escalating war rife with nuclear-armed participants, a mounting pedophile sex scandal threatening to ensnare some of the biggest names on both sides of the Atlantic, and an economy ravaged by price hikes that have American consumers in a chokehold, and well, the Sunshine State’s District 87 contest wasn’t a pressing national priority.

Then Emily Gregory upset the political applecart. Because the residents of that district number among them someone whose day job is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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There was no reason for conservatives to be concerned when incumbent Florida representative Mike Caruso tendered his resignation last August after receiving an appointment to a county office. Redistricting in 2022 had put the seat safely in Republican hands, and it remained there in 2024.

Republicans entered this spring’s special election without a care in the world – fully confident they would retain the seat by a wide margin.

Then Gregory came along.

Both she and Republican rival Jon Maples spent heavily – more than $1 million combined. In a state where legislative races rarely exceed a combined $200,000, that’s a massive outlay.

Maples had Trump’s endorsement. Gregory had bread-and-butter issues. Campaigning on the lackluster yet straightforward slogan, “building a healthier, more hopeful future for all of us,” she stuck to issues in Democrats’ wheelhouse this year: affordability, healthcare access and childcare.

When the votes were counted Tuesday night, she eked out a close victory, defeating Maples 51.2% to 48.8%. By comparison, when Caruso was reelected to the seat in November 2024, he handily won by 19%.

Underscoring the significance, Democrats also flipped an open state Senate seat in the same election by a mere handful of votes. That was another seat Republicans carried by more than 10% in the previous election.             

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The doubleheader victory has Democrats crowing their lungs out – and Republicans scrambling to wipe the egg off their faces.

“My message to Republicans is this: your district is in danger,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried boasted.

 “I think we’re in the middle of a big, big wave,” Palm Beach County Democrats chair Howard Richman chimed in for good measure.

Florida senator Rick Scott did his best to shrug off the losses.

“It’s a special election,” he said. “It’s always hard to get the vote out. Any elections in Florida right now would be state issues.”

The GOP has been offering such excuses a lot lately. Besides Democrats recently picking up the mayor’s office in nearby Miami for the first time in 28 years, they’ve also flipped 30 former Republican-held seats in state legislatures around the country in the 14 months since Trump’s second term began.

“They can’t all be flukes,” our national strategist warned.

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Tellingly, while all the operatives we called were willing to talk — at length, no less — about the political funk many Republicans find themselves sinking into with November’s midterms now almost seven months off, none would speak on the record.

“Nobody wants to risk pissing off Trump,” one confessed to us.

And while Trump wasn’t on the ballot in any of those thirty aforementioned legislative races, he was still a looming presence in each one of them.

“The evidence is starting to suggest a growing number of moderate and independent swing voters have had enough of Trump,” one GOP pollster said bluntly.

“There’s still time for Republicans to right the ship,” another suggested. “Yet there’s no sign Trump or anyone else in the White House is willing to do that. A small window of opportunity to reverse course remains open. But it’s shrinking every day.”

If things aren’t better by the Fourth of July, our source said conservatives should probably accustom themselves to saying something they’d rather not: “Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.

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