Both of President Donald Trump’s picks to fill vacant Florida congressional seats won their primary elections on Jan. 28.
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer and Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis was declared the winner of the primary election against nine other Republican candidates fighting to fill the state’s first congressional district seat vacated by former Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Patronis’s victory was declared by The Associated Press 7 minutes after polls closed in his district. He received almost 33,400 votes, about 66 percent of the 93 percent counted votes as of 9:07 p.m. local time.
State Rep. Joel Rudman was in second place with more than 5,000 votes, or 10 percent of the counted votes.
Florida State Senator Randy Fine was declared the winner of his primary bout against two other Republicans to replace Rep. Michael Waltz in representing Florida’s sixth congressional district about an hour after polls closed.
The state senator carried more than 83 percent of the votes in the district, beating Aaron Baker and Ehsan Joarder, according to The Associated Press.
His district’s two-way Democratic primary was won by Joshua Weil, who took home more than 60 percent of the votes, beating Ges Selmont.
The two parties had different turnout numbers, with nearly 38,000 votes making up an estimated 89 percent of the total GOP primary vote, and more than 15,000 votes making up an estimated 92 percent of the total Democratic primary vote.
The general election is set for April 1 to ultimately decide who fills the seats, with an early voting period running from March 22 through March 29.
This special election was triggered in November 2024 when then-President-elect Donald Trump announced Gaetz as his first pick for attorney general and Waltz as his national security advisor, causing both congressmen to resign from the seats to which they had just been reelected.
Trump was quick to bestow his endorsement on Patronis for Gaetz’s seat and Fine for Waltz’s seat.
The vacancies and time necessary to replace them mean that the GOP’s 220-215 House majority voters won on Nov. 5 won’t become manifest until after the first quarter of 2025.
As of Jan. 28, the split is 218–215, with New York’s Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik expected to vacate her seat upon the Senate confirming her as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
The news that two seats in the lower chamber were up for grabs also created ripple effects that will cause Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd to conduct more in-state special elections in the near future.
Those special elections will be to fill Fine’s seat in District 19 of the State Senate and Rudman’s seat in the State House of Representatives. Rudman ran against Patronis in the FL-1 primary race. Rudman’s seat was vacated on Jan. 1, and Fine’s seat will be vacated on March 31.
Primaries for those elections are also set to be held on April 1.
