Central Florida Congressman Darren Soto on Friday confirmed that he will run for reelection this year even under a new congressional map that reshapes his district to favor Republican candidates.
The Florida Legislature this week approved a controversial revision to the state’s maps that ignores constitutional redistricting protections that voters adopted in 2010.
Once signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the new districts would favor Republicans in 24 of the state’s 28 congressional districts. Right now, Republicans hold the advantage in 20 of the 28 districts. The changes will take effect ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
What does the new district look like?
Soto currently represents voters in District 9, which includes all of Osceola County and south Orlando.
“Nearly 60%” of the area in the current seat would be carried over into the new District 9, Soto said. But the revision also would stretch its boundaries almost twice as far south as under the current map, and add four new counties nearly in their entirety: Okeechobee, Glades, Highlands and Indian River.
A challenging map
The result is a district with a five to six point advantage for Republicans, he explained.
The new maps will make it more difficult for Soto to win reelection, but he’s buoyed by Democratic victories in recent state special elections that flipped previously deep-red seats, including the state district representing President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Historically, in midterm elections, with almost no exceptions, the president’s party loses seats in the U.S. House. Coupled with Trump’s low approval rating, Soto sees reason for reserved optimism.
“There's a lot of Democrats and independents who did not show up the last couple elections” in District 9, he said. “But I can tell you, in the … new proposed seat, Trump is actually underwater by two, three points, according to new polls … because the economy is struggling in a lot of these areas, right? So it's tough, but winnable.”
A consequential ruling
Hispanic voters make up a majority of Soto’s current district, a reality protected by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and by a similar provision in the aforementioned Fair Districts Amendments.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly weakened those protections at a federal and state level in its ruling on Louisiana v. Callais.
Soto is the only Florida Democrat serving a majority-Hispanic voting district in Congress. The new map divides up those Hispanic communities into separate districts.
DeSantis is asserting that the decision not only negates the racial protections in the Fair Districts Amendments, it also nullifies their ban on partisan gerrymandering, an assumption built into the new map.
The governor’s claim hasn’t yet been tested in court.
Legal questions
Soto, who is a member of the Florida Bar, slammed the governor’s decision to ignore the state constitution based on an unproven legal theory.
DeSantis has filled nearly every seat on the Florida Supreme Court with conservative justices who have been sympathetic to many of his highest-profile cases.
If the Florida Supreme Court sides with DeSantis on the new maps, Soto said it “would be an outrageous injustice.
“Have we as Floridians gotten so far gone in partisanship that we openly cheer cheating our own constitution?” he said. “It's not just about this election cycle. It's about many other election cycles going forward, and what it means to have a constitution, what it means to have rules in there that we all have to abide by.”
Legal groups already are preparing to file suit over the new story, which could force the state to revert to the current maps for this year’s elections to avoid confusing or disenfranchising voters.
But nobody knows how those lawsuits will play out.
“Hope springs eternal,” said Soto. “But I'm ready to either beat ‘em in the courts or at the ballot box.”
