Florida Republicans Officially Start Gerrymandering Process In Apparent Effort to Gain More Seats Before Midterms

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez (R) announced on Thursday afternoon that he was putting together a Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting, officially beginning the process to try and further gerrymander the state in an apparent effort to benefit the GOP in the 2026 midterms.

Perez made his announcement in a memo, which comes amid an ongoing battle in Texas’s state House to approve a new map that the GOP believes could net it 5 more seats in Congress. President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans to further gerrymander the state in a bid to keep the House next November, saying Republicans are “entitled” to 5 more seats.

The Tampa Bay Times reported on Perez’s memo and noted, “It’s unclear if Florida will be able to pass a new map — as of last week, Florida Senate President Ben Albritton had declined to comment on whether or not the Senate would be open to redistricting.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently backed the idea of redrawing the Congressional map, which his office drafted and put in place in 2022. DeSantis called the highly unusual mid-decade redistricting “obviously something that we’re looking at very seriously” in a press conference last week.

The current map favors the GOP winning 20 of Florida’s 28 seats and was upheld by the state’s Supreme Court in July of 2025, despite opponents arguing it eliminated a majority-Black district west of Tallahassee.

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