This past Tuesday, a Democrat pulled off an upset win in a deep-red Pennsylvania state Senate seat where President Donald Trump won by 15 percentage points last year.
Add that into the list of other special elections Democrats have overperformed in this year, and it’s clear why Republicans are suddenly sweating the special election in Florida 6th Congressional District.
Florida’s 6th District was vacated by Republican Mike Waltz, who you might now know as the world’s most incompetent national security adviser. Last year, Trump won the district by 30 points—a huge margin—so it shouldn’t be, by any stretch of the imagination, competitive.
And yet …
A poll by St. Pete Polls for news outlet Florida Politics finds that Republican nominee Randy Fine is leading Democrat Josh Weil by a measly 4 points, 48% to 44%. That puts a Weil victory within the poll’s margin of error. Even worse for Republicans is that an internal poll from Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s 2024 pollster, finds Fine down 3 points to Weil, according to Axios. The same pollster had Fine up 12 points in February.
But let’s take a breath. Normally, undecided voters end up voting in line with their district/state’s partisan lean, which is R+14 for Florida’s 6th, according to the Cook Political Report. That means it’s 14 points more Republican than the country as a whole. So, in a normal election, I would expect the Republican would win this seat with roughly 57% of the vote to the Democrat’s 43%—a spread of 14 points.
That, in itself, would flash some warning signs in GOP hallways. In November, Waltz won the seat with over 66% of the vote, in what ended up being a good cycle for Republicans overall.
But this isn’t a normal election. This is a special election in April, in a climate in which rank-and-file Democrats are seething over the state of the nation. Turnout will be the name of the game, and by all indications, Democrats are far more motivated than Republicans.
In the St. Pete/Florida Politics poll, Weil leads among those who have voted, 51% to 43%. As of Thursday, in early-voting returns, registered Republicans have just a 5-point advantage in who has voted so far. The chances of an upset are small, but they do exist—shockingly. And a lot of that could be because, according to that St. Pete’s/Florida Politics poll, 51% of the district’s likely voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 45% disapprove. Remember, he won by 30 points in November. Given that, it’s not so surprising to see Fine’s anemic early performance.
Uncertainty over this district reportedly played a role in the Trump administration pulling Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.N. ambassador. The nomination had already been languishing as House Republicans were loath to (temporarily) lose her vote, given their razor-thin majority in the chamber.
But pulling Stefanik’s nomination doesn’t solve the GOP’s bigger problem. Its ability to maintain party discipline in the House has been genuinely impressive, and has been driven almost exclusively by Trump’s strong-arm efforts to threaten members who stray with primary challenges. They fear Trump. And Elon Musk, who might fund those challengers if a representative crosses the president.
But what happens if Trump is also alienating voters to such an extent that districts that backed him by 30 points are now competitive?
Put another way, Trump keeps his troops in line because they think his backing will give them the best chance to win reelection in 2026. So what happens if being closely tied to Trump makes it less likely they survive? What good is weathering a Republican primary only to end up getting steamrolled by a Democrat in the general election? It’s quite the conundrum, isn’t it?
The closer the margin in Tuesday’s special election, the bigger that conundrum for Republicans. And if Democrats pull off a big upset?
Then look out.
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