WASHINGTON — A pair of Florida Republicans preserved reliably red U.S. House districts in special elections on Tuesday, preventing Democrats from an upset that could have been used as a political cudgel against President Donald Trump in his home state.

Randy Fine, a combative state senator who clashed with Gov. Ron DeSantis, won the open-seat race in northeast Florida’s 6th Congressional District to succeed national security adviser Mike Waltz.

In Florida’s 1st Congressional District covering the Panhandle, Republican Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer, handily captured the seat held by former Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Each enjoyed and heavily touted the endorsement of the president.

Despite reams of complaints about Fine’s abilities as a candidate, the pair of wins avoids what would have amounted to a cataclysmic political embarrassment for leaders of the GOP, many of whom openly fretted about Fine’s campaign.

Trump carried both districts by about 30 points last November; Fine’s margin is less than half that. But underperformer and all, he’s still headed to Washington to preserve Republicans’ paper-thin majority in the U.S. House. Once Fine and Patronis are sworn in, Republicans will hold 220 House seats to Democrats’ 213.

In the run-up to Election Day, conservative influencers rang the alarm bells about Fine’s candidacy.

“We have a candidate I don’t think is winning,” declared Steve Bannon on his 'War Room' digital program. DeSantis, who personally feuded with Fine, said the competitiveness of the race was about a “rejection of the specific candidate.” The governor piled on at a press conference, asserting that Fine is “not from that district. He lives like 150 miles away.”

Sounding the alarm bells

Last week, someone involved in the Fine campaign appeared to play some political jujitsu, leaking an internal poll by Trump strategist Tony Fabrizio to Axios showing Fine trailing Democrat Josh Weil by 3 percentage points.

To political hands, it smelled like a strategy to juice Fine’s lackluster fundraising and scare Republicans out to vote.

It looks like it worked. Republicans flooded the polls on Election Day, an indication that nationalizing the race and raising the stakes energized the Trump base, even on behalf of a subpar candidate.

Asked about how his poll lined up with the final result, Fabrizio told the Miami Herald that the survey leaked to Axios showing a 3-point Fine deficit was taken three weeks before the election. He said he did not know who leaked the survey but understood the intent.

“It sounded the alarm bells that put the campaign and all GOP forces into high gear to go on TV and significantly beef up turnout efforts,” he said.

Fabrizio said his final private poll of the race had Fine’s advantage at 7 percentage points and growing.

Democrats' glass half-full

Given the rough state of the Democratic Party these days, better-than-expected counts as a moral victory. At least that’s how some leaders were trying to frame it.

“Josh Weil massively overperformed in a deep-red Florida district that went for Trump by 30 points. Republicans should be nervous for November 2026,” posted Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin, who campaigned in the Sunshine State.

Some Democrats said the lesson of the double-digits shifts was to compete everywhere, particularly in deep red districts. One analyst said the results presented a glass-half full for the minority party.

“We’ve seen this show before: The performances Dems pulled off in tonight’s special elections are inflated by turnout dynamics and won’t be matched in the midterms,” noted Matthew Klein, an analyst at The Cook Political Report. “But if Democrats do even half as well as this in 2026, they’re probably feeling very good about the House majority.”

Even while Democrats cut into red district margins in Florida, their losses also demonstrate the limits of raising gobs of campaign cash.

In Florida’s 6th congressional district, Weil raised nearly $10 million compared to Fine, who failed to hit even $1 million. In Florida’s 1st congressional district, Democrat Gay Valimont took in three times the campaign cash as Patronis.

With 95% of the votes in, Fine’s advantage was 14 percentage points; Patronis’ was 15 points.

“I think if the president was on the ballot he would win by 30 again,” DeSantis told reporters before the results were tallied.

That’s something Fine might even agree on.

When Trump posted about Fine’s victory, he replied on social media, “Because of you, Mr. President.”

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