Florida Supreme Court lets Republican-backed congressional map stand

Florida’s Supreme Court handed Republicans a major redistricting victory, leaving in place a new congressional map that could help preserve the party’s 20-seat hold on Florida’s 28-member House delegation. The 6-1 ruling also signaled unusual restraint from the state’s highest court, which said it lacked jurisdiction to step in while a separate challenge continues in a lower appeals court.

The decision matters because the map is already built into the fight for the November midterm elections, when control of the U.S. House is on the line. Florida Democrats had asked the justices to freeze the new lines and restore the old districts while litigation played out, arguing the Republican-backed plan was an unlawful partisan gerrymander and diluted Black voting strength. The court declined to do so, leaving the map in place as candidate filing approached Friday and the August 18 primary drew near.

That timing gave the ruling added weight. Florida’s election calendar leaves little room for major changes once campaign deadlines pass, and the state’s fast vote counting can make early results in contested districts politically important. With 28 congressional seats, even modest shifts in district boundaries can reverberate far beyond Tallahassee and shape the national House battle.

The new lines were approved by Florida Republicans in late April, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for districts with significant racial minority populations. That decision helped accelerate a broader mid-decade redistricting fight after Donald Trump pushed Texas Republicans last summer to adopt a more favorable map. Since then, Republican- and Democratic-led states alike have sought partisan advantage through redistricting, but GOP-led Southern states have moved especially quickly to eliminate majority or near-majority Black districts that have tended to favor Democrats.

Florida Republicans already control 20 of the state’s 28 House seats, and the new map is designed to try to flip as many as four Democratic districts. That makes the Florida court’s refusal to intervene more than a procedural ruling. It gave Republicans a clearer path into a national redistricting contest that could help determine the balance of power in the next Congress, even as Democrats still see a route to winning the House. Weak approval ratings for Trump, however, have complicated the broader political map and left both parties looking for every seat they can hold or flip.