GOP firebrand Randy Fine is bringing his heated rhetoric to the halls of Congress, after defeating Democrat Josh Weil in Tuesday’s special election for a Central Florida district.

But Weil’s closer-than-expected margin in an overwhelmingly Republican seat could buoy his party’s overall hopes for 2026.

The special election in congressional District 6 drew national attention after polls showed Weil within a few points of Fine, with the national Democratic chair flying in for rallies and the Trump White House rallying support for Fine — whom the president had endorsed — online.

Weil was ahead in vote-by-mail totals at the beginning of the night. But a heavy Republican election day turnout eventually made the difference.

“Because of you, Mr. President,” Fine wrote on X in response to Trump proclaiming his win. “I won’t let you down.”

Fine, who resigned his Brevard County-area state Senate seat on Monday, took in 56.7% of the vote as of about 8:30 p.m.. Weil, a Kissimmee teacher who lives in Orlando, received about 42.7%.

Former U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, who triggered the election when he resigned to become President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, had won the seat by 33 percentage points in November.

But Tuesday’s results showed a nearly 20-point swing towards Democrats compared to last year, a change that echoes similar shifts in recent special elections, including a state Senate win by a Democrat last week in a heavily red seat in Pennsylvania.

Tuesday’s special election for congressional District 1 in the Panhandle saw a similar swing, with Republican CFO Jimmy Patronis defeating Democrat Gay Valimont by about 14 points in a seat Matt Gaetz won by 32 points last year.

“Yes, Republicans are holding their base, but not reaching beyond it,” Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida, wrote on social media. “It is very difficult to move a district as much as this one did.”

Fine was heavily outraised by Weil, with the Democrat taking in nearly $10 million. Fine, a casino industry millionaire, had raised less than $1 million before lending himself $600,000 in the past few weeks.

NBC News reported that Trump and others in the White House were extremely concerned about the race. Trump whipped up the votes for Fine on Monday, writing on his social media site Truth Social, “GET OUT THE VOTE FOR RANDY – HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”

Last week, apparently worried about a weak GOP performance in Tuesday’s special elections, Trump pulled the nomination of New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik to become ambassador to the United Nations. It’s “essential that we maintain EVERY Republican Seat in Congress,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Fine has long been a controversial figure in Florida, where he served eight years in the state House before a short stint this year in the state Senate. He had ramped up his attacks on Weil in March as polls began to show a dangerously close race for such a Republican-leaning seat.

Fine slammed Weil for employing a “violent felon” after a campaign staffer was arrested for stealing a bicycle, brought up an incident in 2015 in which Weil was suspended for an altercation with a student at the Orange Youth Academy, and called his opponent “Jihad Josh Weil” for his past embrace of Islam.

Such rhetoric was nothing new for Fine, who has become notorious for his provocative social media posts and attention-grabbing words.

Fine threatened in a text to pull funding for Special Olympics over a feud with a Brevard school board member he called a “whore,” floated the idea of a “potential shutdown” of the University of Central Florida, and was held in contempt last year after giving a judge the middle finger.

Fine alienated even members of his own party. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a one-time ally who once represented the district in Congress, predicted Republican underperformance in the special election and said it was “a reflection of the candidate.”

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