The Republican candidates prevailed in a pair of special congressional elections in Florida on Tuesday, NBC News projects, giving Republicans some more breathing room as they navigate a narrow House majority.
NBC News projects that Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis has won the race in the 1st District to replace GOP former Rep. Matt Gaetz, while Republican state Sen. Randy Fine won the 6th District race to replace GOP former Rep. Michael Waltz, who is now President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.
Fine was leading Democrat Josh Weil 54%-46% when the NBC News Decision Desk called the race with 73% of the expected vote in. In three counties where nearly all of the expected vote is in, Fine was faring around 10 points worse than Waltz in November.
Patronis defeated Democrat Gay Valimont, a former activist with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, who lost to Gaetz in November.
The 6th District race gave some Republicans heartburn, with Weil vastly outraising Fine and Fine slow to launch TV ads. Trump carried the district, which includes Daytona Beach, by 30 points in November, but outside Republican groups hit the airwaves in the final days as the race appeared to be competitive.
Trump himself also engaged to help turn out his supporters, as Democrats looked to leverage lower turnout in a special election and energy among the party’s grassroots to oppose him. Trump issued multiple Truth Social posts and held two tele-town halls last week for both candidates.
State Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee in March 2023.Phil Sears / AP file
Fine is a staunch Trump ally, having switched his endorsement in the 2024 presidential primary from home-state Gov. Ron DeSantis to Trump. Fine wrote in an op-ed that he, as a Jewish Republican, did not believe DeSantis had done enough to combat antisemitism. DeSantis represented the 6th District in Congress before he ran for governor.
Fine’s decision to endorse Trump earned him the president’s support ahead of the special primary election in January, helping him easily win the GOP nomination. And he promoted his ties to Trump in the race.
“I stand behind you 100%, and you’ll have no greater warrior for your agenda than me,” Fine said of Trump in last week’s tele-town hall.
Fine’s support for Trump appealed to Linda Morgan, a Republican voter who cast her ballot Tuesday morning for Fine.
“If he admits he’s going to help President Trump do the job that we elected him for, then I’m all in,” Morgan told NBC News outside a polling place in Daytona Beach.
Fine celebrated his victory by crediting Trump with the win, writing on X, “Because of you, Mr. President. I won’t let you down.”
Patronis also pitched himself as a Trump ally, though he stayed neutral in the presidential primary, saying in an interview in January that he wanted to maintain a good working relationship with DeSantis.
‘All hands on deck’
Valimont significantly outraised Patronis, which he acknowledged created “a lot of anxiety” in his race.
But the fundraising gap was even wider in the slightly-less-Republican 6th District, which drove Republican concerns about Fine’s prospects.
Weil, a public school teacher who had raised more than $10 million as of Monday, according to recent fundraising reports, had leveraged his strong fundraising to launch attacks against Fine over potential GOP-led cuts to entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicaid, in a district where nearly 30% of the population is over age 65.
Trump tried to counter those attacks in last week’s tele-town hall, telling supporters, “Randy will vote to defend Social Security, protect Medicare, cut your taxes, end inflation, fully fund our border security agenda.”
Fine had raised $2 million as of Monday, including $600,000 from himself, fueling some GOP concerns that the race could be closer than expected.
Fine also lives more than 100 miles south of the seat he was running in and never made real inroads in the region, and he did not start running TV ads until late in the campaign.
That worried Republicans, but Weil’s huge financial support is what bred panic among Republicans and the White House.
“The White House was late in learning what almost every Floridian involved in politics knew,” said a longtime Florida operative involved with the race who is familiar with the Trump orbit’s thinking. Once it realized Fine’s vulnerabilities, the source said, it “engaged at an enormous level and expended the necessary resources to win it.”
“It was all hands on deck,” the person added.
The effort included a huge push from Florida Republicans to travel to the district to help get out the vote for Fine, as well as a late influx of cash to get Fine on TV and help blunt his money disadvantage against Weil.
“Panic and money can solve a lot of problems,” said a Republican consultant working on Fine’s campaign.
Democrats, meanwhile, took solace in Weil’s appearing to perform better than Vice President Kamala Harris.
“In 2025, Democrats have overperformed the top of the ticket in nearly every election as voters turn out in blue, purple, and red districts to voice their anger at Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement. “Tonight was no different.”
Some breathing room
The pair of GOP victories gives Republican House leaders a little more breathing room in passing their major priorities.
Republicans will now have a 220-213 majority, with two Democratic vacancies, meaning they can afford to lose three Republicans and still pass legislation along party lines, assuming every sitting member votes.
Patronis and Fine will head to Congress as Republicans are trying to piece together a sweeping budget proposal to tackle Trump’s top priorities, including extending his 2017 tax cuts.
Fine has signaled that he will support Trump’s agenda, telling him at last week’s tele-town hall that his race could determine “whether you have the votes in Congress you need to get the job done.”
Patronis said in an interview last week that his top priorities in Congress would be the economy and supporting veterans. (The 1st District has the second-highest share of veterans of any district in the country, according to the Veterans Administration.)
Asked whether there were any elements of a possible budget proposal that he would not support, such as cuts to Medicaid, Patronis demurred, saying he had not given much thought to “those type of hypotheticals.”
“My principles are making sure that we’re either restoring dollars back to the citizens of CD-1, we spend their dollars more efficient,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good to create a path where you’re taking away something from a benefit or entitlement that somebody is counting on. I do like giving people options.”
Marissa Parra, Charlie Gile and Tara Prindiville contributed.
