Florida Democrats quietly flipped a state House seat blue in a special election on Tuesday as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was campaigning after a second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.
Orlando Democrat Tom Keen narrowly defeated his Republican opponent Erika Booth to fill a vacant House seat. Keen, a manager at Collins Aerospace and a U.S. Navy veteran, won with about 51% of the vote, compared to about 49% for Booth. Keen will now become the 36th Democrat in the Florida House, which remains largely in Republican control with 84 state representatives. Republicans have a majority in the Florida Senate with 28-12.
With endorsements from GOP lawmakers and support from organizations such as Americans for Prosperity Action, the political arm of the powerful Koch network, Booth outraised Keen with over twice as much funding. Booth had $305,000 compared to Keen’s $115,386 in campaign funds, per Fresh Take Florida.
State House District 35 became up for grabs last year when incumbent Republican state Rep. Fred Hawkins resigned to serve as president of South Florida State College. The district faced legislative redistricting from the 2020 census and includes parts of Osceola and Orange counties.
While the red wave never arrived for Republicans on a national scale, Florida Republicans swept state and local elections in 2022, gaining four seats in the state Senate and increasing their House majority by several members. Hawkins defeated his Democratic opponent by more than 10 percentage points that year.
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DeSantis beat Democrat Charlie Crist in Florida’s 2022 gubernatorial race 59% to 40%, the largest margin in decades, cementing the GOP’s power in what once was considered a purple state. The Republican presidential candidate spent the week of the special election campaigning in Iowa ahead of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary election in New Hampshire next week.
“Tonight, we flipped a seat in the Florida House of Representatives, electing veteran Tom Keen. It’s the *first* Democratic flip of the year and the second major loss for Ron DeSantis this week,” the Florida Democratic Party wrote on X. “Don’t count Florida out.”