Florida GOP keeps House seat in special election as Trump-backed Randy Fine overcomes pre-voting jitters

WASHINGTON — Florida Republican state Sen.Randy Fine easily won the first of two crucial special elections for the US House in the Sunshine State Tuesday, temporarily bolstering the GOP’s razor-thin majority.Fine was projected to defeat Democrat Josh Weil, an Orlando teacher, and succeed former Rep.

Mike Waltz, who represented Florida’s 6th District for six years before resigning to become President Trump’s national security adviser.The race had been expected to be a shoo-in for Republicans in a district Trump won by 30 percentage points in the November presidential election.However, an internal survey by Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio that leaked last week found Fine trailing Weil by three percentage points, 44%-41%.Other polls had Fine up but within the margin of error, prompting top Republicans such as Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis to concede Fine would likely underperform Trump, with DeSantis calling the expected result a “reflection of the candidate that’s running in that race.”When the race was called, with 73% of the expected vote reporting, Fine led Weil by 8.1 percentage points.Fine also lagged badly behind Weil in the fundraising race.

Weil raked in about $9.5 million by mid-March and had $1.3 million cash on hand, per campaign finance disclosures.By contrast, Fine had only $93,000 cash on hand and was forced to donate $600,000 of his own money to his campaign to help make up for the gap.The president himself implored Floridians to get out and vote in a post on Truth Social Tuesday morning, saying that Fine “has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” and “WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”The angst over Fine’s fate and the possibility of losing a House seat once thought unlosable helped lead the Trump administration to pull Rep.Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be US ambassador to the United Nations last week.

Since at least 2009, off-year elections have been seen by the party out of power as an opportunity to rally disaffected voters ahead of even-ye...