Florida Rep. Wasserman Schultz says she'll run for reelection despite tough districts created by Republican map
Published in Political News
PLANTATION, Fla. — Fired up and defiant after Republicans blew up her congressional district, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Friday she would run for election — but she didn’t say where.
“The easiest decision for me to make is that I’m running,” she said Friday after an event in Plantation.
Wasserman Schultz said she would be able to deliver the “kind of clout, experience and seniority to make sure that we can be at the top of the legislative agenda, and that there’s a member of Congress who can push our priorities to the top of that agenda. And that’s what I plan to go out and talk to voters about and hopefully they will send me back to the Capitol.”
Wasserman Schultz, who currently represents parts of southern and western Broward, is one of four Florida Democrats targeted by the unusual mid-decade redistricting of Florida’s congressional districts.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who crafted the new maps, designed them in a way that makes the path to reelection more difficult for Wasserman Schultz, who has been a fierce Democratic critic of the Republican governor.
She was first elected in 2004 and is now the senior Democrat in the Florida delegation.
The DeSantis-driven revamping of the state’s congressional districts, ratified Wednesday by the Florida Legislature, are the latest of the response by Republican states to President Donald Trump’s call for them to change district boundaries before the midterm elections.
The president’s objective: Getting more Republicans and fewer Democrats elected in November. The Florida result is a map with a Republican advantage in 24 districts and a Democratic advantage in four. The current districts produced a 20-8 split in favor of the Republicans.
Wasserman Schultz’s home city of Weston is now part of a sprawling district that extends north — with a jog to the east to pick up Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz’s home in Parkland — to take in parts of Palm Beach County, including Wellington and the Glades communities near Lake Okeechobee.
It also extends west through Collier County to Naples, Marco Island and the Gulf of Mexico.
The newly crafted District 22 is Republican. The territory in the new district went for President Donald Trump over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by 10.5 percentage points in 2024.
In the district Wasserman Schultz currently represents, Harris finished 5 points ahead of Trump. Wasserman Schultz performed better than her party’s presidential nominee, finishing 10 points ahead of her Republican challenger.
Wasserman Schultz declined to say Friday which new district she’d actually run in, noting that the maps were passed two days before a reporter was asking the question. “I will be running in a district that continues to allow me to represent and fight for the people of South Florida,” she said, giving virtually the same answer three times.
Options:
—Run in the sprawling new district that includes her home and Moskowitz’s home.
—Run in a Broward-only district that includes many of the Black-American and Caribbean-American communities that had been represented by Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick until she resigned from the House in April.
—Run in a new coastal district — also drawn to advantage Republicans — that runs from Delray Beach in the north to Miami Beach in the South.
Moskowitz is widely expected to run there, but he hasn’t publicly disclosed his plans. A representative didn’t respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Wasserman Schultz said she and Moskowitz have spoken about the new districts, but rejected the suggestion that there would be an agreement between them about who would run where.
“This is not about backroom deals. This is about making sure that you can stand up for your constituents,” Wasserman Schultz said.
She said she’s “talking to lots of people” and “touching base with folks across our community” as she comes to a decision about where to run. She declined to offer a timetable for a decision and announcement.
“There’s a lot of moving parts to this whole thing right now as there always is,” Wasserman Schultz said.
The maps, which DeSantis has said he’ll sign as soon as the legislation arrives on his desk, are certain to be challenged in court.
Wasserman Schultz said she would not be a plaintiff, and said challenges could work through the courts at the same time she is mounting her reelection campaign.
“Those of us who intend, like me, to continue to have the privilege of representing constituents in South Florida, have to walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said.
Besides Wasserman Schultz and Moskowitz, the two Democrats whose districts were chopped up by the new map are U.S. Reps. Kathy Castor of Tampa Bay and Darren Soto of Central Florida.
Wasserman Schultz, 59, served in the Florida Senate and the state House of Representatives before she was elected to Congress. She was also President Barack Obama’s handpicked chair of the Democratic National Committee from May 2011 until July 2016.
Wasserman Schultz made her comments about her reelection plans on Friday after an event in Plantation where she argued against the Trump administration’s efforts to end temporary protected status for Haitians and Venezuelans.
Widely known by the acronym TPS, the humanitarian program allows people from designated countries such as Haiti and Venezuela to live and work in the U.S. when conditions make it dangerous to return to their home countries.
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