Special Elections

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Republicans won their pair of special elections for the House last night as expected. But there was still a surprise in the results.

And it didn’t come from RANDY FINE’s race in the 6th District, where President DONALD TRUMP, the MAGA universe and Florida’s GOP grassroots apparatus pulled out all the stops to help him defeat progressive challenger JOSH WEIL and his massive fundraising haul. Fine ended up winning by 14 points — less than the more-than-30-point margin Trump earned in November.

The surprise instead: The 1st District, where former Chief Financial Officer JIMMY PATRONIS won against Democrat GAY VALIMONT by nearly that same margin. He also appears to have lost Escambia County, which includes Pensacola. Patronis in a statement called the Panhandle a “force of its own” after the results were called.

Republicans said the only thing that mattered was winning, especially in the face of massive cash opposition, and not to read too much into the margins. Democrats, meanwhile, saw reasons to celebrate the results, with Florida Democratic Party Chair NIKKI FRIED saying the overperformance showed that “voters are already rejecting Trump’s extreme agenda.”

Bottom line: House Speaker MIKE JOHNSON will get the two extra votes he needs to help deliver Trump’s agenda. Republicans were certainly giddy toward the end of the day, when it became clear the GOP’s all-hands strategy had worked. Republican Party of Florida Chair EVAN POWER shared a meme of a dumpster on fire, being carried along by floodwaters. “Everything’s fine,” the caption read.

“The smell of them burning $20 Million!! !” chimed in RPOF Executive Director BILL HELMICH, referring to the massive amount of fundraising from Democrats. At the end of the evening, Power said the results “[reinforce] the state’s position as the cornerstone of the conservative movement” given how significantly the party was outspent.

One Republican who isn’t happy about Fine going to D.C. — in his old seat nonetheless — is Gov. RON DESANTIS. “The president got really bad advice about endorsing him and was told that he was the only candidate that could win, which is totally not true,” DeSantis said on The Dana Show with Dana Loesch, per Florida Politics’ A.G. Gancarski. “And there’s a whole host of reasons how bad advice gets to him that I think is very problematic.” (Note: Fine took a risk for Trump in the 2024 presidential primary by flipping his endorsement from DeSantis to Trump, so there appears to be more than outside advice at play.)

DeSantis also revealed Tuesday that he wouldn’t be appointing Patronis’ replacement until mid-May. Patronis had asked DeSantis to give the job to someone by today and take his name off state documents, which may make it difficult for the state government to pay its bills. DeSantis, however, said “my guys have looked at it” and he’ll instead appoint an interim CFO and that “we’re vetting” for the job in the meantime, reports POLITICO’s Gary Fineout.

“I’ve said publicly if people are interested, let us know if you got the qualifications and you’re going to support strong policies,” he said. “But the reality is we’ve got to go through that process.”