Florida Republicans started Election Day with the biggest voter-registration lead of any state that registers voters by party. They won every statewide race, but none by more than 3 points.
Across the country, Tuesday was a big night for Democrats, who took control of both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. Florida looked like the exception. Republicans kept the governor’s mansion, a U.S. Senate seat and all three Cabinet offices.
The results say something different. Republicans came into the election with a lead of more than 1.5 million registered voters, and they won the top races by margins of 113,000 to 182,000 votes. They lost their supermajority in the state House. Five Florida congressional races were decided by less than a point. Even in deep-red Brevard County, the local congressman’s margin shrank sharply, and a Democrat is on track to win a Brevard state House seat for the first time since the 1990s.
The biggest head start in the nation
When voter registration closed on Oct. 5, Florida had 13.7 million registered voters. About 5.69 million were Republicans (41.5%) and about 4.15 million were Democrats (30.3%). That’s a Republican lead of about 1.54 million voters, or 11 points.
No other big state that registers voters by party comes close to that Republican lead in raw numbers. Only two Democratic strongholds have bigger leads for either party.
| State | Republican | Democratic | Unaffiliated/other | Registration edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 41.5% | 30.3% | ~28% | R +1.54M (+11 pts) |
| Arizona | 34.8% | 28.3% | 34.9% | R +283K (+6.5 pts) |
| North Carolina | 29.9% | 29.6% | 40.5% | R +24K (+0.3 pts) |
| Nevada | 26.3% | 27.1% | 44%+ | About even |
| Pennsylvania | 40.8% | 42.7% | 16.6% | D +159K (+1.9 pts) |
| California | 25.0% | 44.9% | ~30% | D +4.6M (+20 pts) |
| New York | 22.5% | 47.5% | ~30% | D +3.07M (+25 pts) |
Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Virginia don’t register voters by party, so they can’t be compared this way. Some smaller red states, such as Idaho and Wyoming, have bigger Republican leads in percentage terms.
Every statewide race was won by less than 3 points
Republicans held all five statewide offices. With an 11-point registration lead, none of those races should have been close. Every one was.
| Race | Republican | Democrat | GOP margin (votes) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governor | Byron Donalds, 4,123,135 | David Jolly, 4,010,202 | ~113,000 |
| Attorney General | James Uthmeier, 4,168,761 | Jose Javier Rodriguez, 4,010,263 | ~158,000 |
| Chief Financial Officer | Blaise Ingoglia, 4,141,271 | Annette Taddeo, 3,982,037 | ~159,000 |
| Agriculture Commissioner | Wilton Simpson, 4,150,475 | Joey Mendoza Atkins, 3,968,752 | ~182,000 |
| U.S. Senate | Ashley Moody, 50.8% | Angie Nixon, 48.1% | 2.7 pts |
Unofficial election-night results, Nov. 3-4, 2026: WKMG/ClickOrlando (governor and Cabinet, 99% of precincts) and South Florida Times (Senate).
The closest race was at the top of the ticket. Donalds, who becomes Florida’s first Black governor, won by about 113,000 votes out of more than 8 million cast. In the Senate race, Nixon led for much of election night, until late returns from the Panhandle put Moody ahead.
Republicans started with a 1.54 million-voter registration lead. Their best statewide result was a win of about 182,000 votes, less than one-eighth of that lead.
Brevard: a 21-point edge, a 13-point win
The same gap showed up at home. Brevard Republicans have 95,565 more active voters than Democrats, 46.5% to 25.2%. That’s a lead of more than 21 points, almost double the statewide edge.
U.S. Rep. Mike Haridopolos, a Republican from Brevard, won the county by 33,927 votes, 151,057 (56.3%) to 117,130 (43.7%) over Democrat Jennifer Jenkins. That’s a margin of 12.7 points, a little over half of his party’s registration lead in his home county (Brevard Supervisor of Elections).
Across the whole 8th Congressional District, the race was much closer. Jenkins won the Orange County part of the district easily, 63% to 37% (Orange County Supervisor of Elections). Adding those votes to Brevard’s, Haridopolos won CD8 by about 20,800 votes, or 6.5 points (53.3% to 46.7%). Back in July, a poll of the race first signaled it could be competitive.
In 2024, Haridopolos won CD8 by 24.5 points, 62.2% to 37.8%, a margin of more than 110,000 votes. The district was redrawn for this election. It used to include Indian River County and now includes part of Orange instead, so the two results aren’t a perfect comparison. Still, a drop from about 24 points to about 6 is a big swing for a seat rated “solid Republican.”
Haridopolos actually ran a little ahead of the top of the ticket in Brevard. Donalds won the county by 11.1 points. The weak result wasn’t just about one candidate.
A Brevard Democrat headed to Tallahassee?
Democrat Dan McDow leads Republican Rep. Monique Miller by 274 votes in House District 33, 36,394 (50.19%) to 36,120 (49.81%). All precincts have reported, and the race appears headed for a recount (AOL).
If McDow’s lead holds, it would be a rare Democratic win in Brevard:
- No Democrat has won a partisan race in Brevard since at least 2012. That year, Democrat Robin Fisher won County Commission District 1, and Bill Nelson carried the county in his U.S. Senate race (Brevard Supervisor of Elections).
- Republicans swept every partisan race in Brevard in 2024. The best-performing Democrat got 43% of the vote (Central Florida Public Media).
- McDow would be Brevard’s first Democrat elected to the Florida House since the 1990s. The last Brevard Democrat in the House we found was Harry Goode of Melbourne, who switched to the Republican Party in 1998.
Republicans won Brevard’s other five legislative races on Tuesday. See how the results compare with The Space Coast Rocket’s 2026 election projections.
The local party behind the results
Brevard’s weak showing came a year after a hostile takeover of the county Republican Party.
In October 2025, the Republican Party of Florida removed Rick Lacey as chairman of the Brevard Republican Executive Committee. The complaints that led to his removal were filed by U.S. Rep. Randy Fine and State Committeewoman Marie Rogerson, whom congressional staff records list as Fine’s deputy chief of staff.
The takeover came on Nov. 24, 2025, at a special meeting to replace Lacey. More than 150 members were in the main room. Seven people, including Rogerson and party Treasurer Randy Stackhouse, broke off into a side area. There they declared John Dittmore county chairman and Josiah Gattle state committeeman, filling the seat Fine resigned that night. No ballots, nominations or results were announced to the members in the main room. Acting Chair Dave Fosdick called it a “secret meeting” that did not have a quorum, as The Space Coast Rocket reported at the time and in a follow-up the next day. Florida GOP Chair Evan Power congratulated the new leadership anyway.
Gattle has twice lost races for Rockledge City Council. In 2023, he lost to Democratic incumbent Sammie Brown Martin by 25 votes. In 2024, he lost to Tara L. Connor, 54.4% to 45.6%. He’s never won an election that had more than 7 voters.
The new leadership worked with School Board members Matt Susin and Gene Trent on strategy. Even so, the committee could not reach a quorum at its meetings for almost a year. Trent, as a Republican incumbent in a bright red district lost by a landslide.
The result was Brevard Republicans’ worst showing in more than a decade. Donalds got 54.7% in the county, less than Mitt Romney’s 55.6% in 2012. No Democrat has won a partisan race in Brevard since 2012, and now one is about to it seems.
Congress: five races within a point
Florida’s U.S. House delegation looks likely to stay 20 Republicans and 8 Democrats. That number hides how close several races were. As of late Tuesday, five were within one percentage point (NBC Miami):
| District | Leader | Margin |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | Darren Soto (D) over Dan Green (R) | 0.5 pts |
| 27 | Maria Elvira Salazar (R) over Eliott Rodriguez (D) | 0.5 pts |
| 7 | Ryan Elijah (R) over Bale Dalton (D) | 0.6 pts |
| 13 | Anna Paulina Luna (R) over Leela Gray (D) | 0.8 pts |
| 26 | Mario Diaz-Balart (R) over Nicole Locklin (D) | 0.8 pts |
The Associated Press called District 9 too close to call, and Soto’s race may go to a recount (Central Florida Public Media). Four of the five closest races have Republicans narrowly ahead, so a small change in turnout could have shifted the delegation by several seats.
Tallahassee: the House supermajority is gone
The biggest change may be in the Legislature.
- State House: Republicans came in with 82 of 120 seats, plus four vacant seats they had held. Unofficial returns show them losing about 15 seats, which would drop them below the 80 needed for a two-thirds supermajority. Democrats are no longer a “super-minority” (WUSF).
- State Senate: Democrat John Lowndes was leading Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur. Republican Sen. Alexis Calatayud’s margin was just outside the recount threshold. The GOP supermajority in the Senate appears to have survived, but narrowly (CBS Miami).
In Florida, a two-thirds vote is needed to override a governor’s veto and to waive some of the Legislature’s own procedural rules. Without it, House Republicans can no longer do those things on their own and will need some Democratic votes.
What it means
Florida stayed red on Tuesday, but not because it ignored the national shift. Republicans started with a bigger lead than any other big state, and most of that lead disappeared.
Their 11-point registration edge became wins of 1 to 3 points statewide. In Brevard, a 21-point edge became a 13-point win for the local congressman. The House supermajority is gone, and a Brevard state House seat may flip to a Democrat for the first time in decades.
Closing a gap that big takes some mix of three things: independents breaking toward Democrats, Republicans crossing over, and Republicans staying home. No-party voters make up about 1 in 4 Florida voters. Whether the shift lasts until 2028 is an open question.
One thing is clear: Florida’s registration numbers aren’t the safe cushion they seemed to be on Monday.
About these numbers
All 2026 results are unofficial election-night returns. They don’t include provisional ballots or mail ballots that can still be cured, and several races may go to recounts. Statewide vote counts were taken with about 99% of precincts reporting. The CD8 total combines Brevard’s final election-night count with Orange County’s count at 27 of 28 precincts. Margins in percentage points are calculated from the reported vote totals.
Registration figures are from the Division of Elections’ book-closing totals for this election (Florida) and from the Brevard Supervisor of Elections’ active-voter report (Brevard). Figures for other states come from state election offices, including the California Secretary of State, reporting by FOX 10 Phoenix, and the Independent Voter Project (Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada). California’s figures are from April 2026. CD8’s 2024 result is from Wikipedia.
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