U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, U.S., March 18, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
President Donald Trump woke up on Wednesday morning to Democrats flipping a seat in a Republican stronghold in Florida. One Democratic strategist thinks that it's because Americans are furious with the Republican Party.
Speaking to CNN, Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha explained that Trump is stuck "with a special election that happened in his backyard, where a Democrat flipped a seat R plus 12." He's saying that the district favored Republicans by 12 points.
He's talking about Emily Gregory, the Democrat who just flipped a seat in the state House in the district that covers Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club. The balance of power in the state legislature won't change much, as Republicans continue to hold the majority. But for Democrats, winning the seat was symbolic.
Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Times reported Wednesday morning that Democrat Brian Nathan is leading his GOP opponent, former state Rep. Josie Tomkow, by a thin margin, putting it in recount territory. Nathan said that Tomkow had already called to concede.
The report said that while more Republicans than Democrats turned out to vote, the difference came down to third-party votes, which broke heavily for Democrats.
“It came down to turnout,” Nathan told the Times. “I really think this came through because we were speaking to (third-party voters) where they were at.”
The report also noted that "Tomkow outspent Nathan more than 3-to-1. She also received more than $400,000 in in-kind contributions from the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee."
"The point of the matter of what we're talking about here is there's an anxiety and a frustration, and you're seeing this overperformance with Democrats across the board," said Rocha. The reason, he said, "because Republicans are getting blamed because they're in charge. And there's an anxiety in what we see here that just builds on it. They're not blaming Democrats for this. They're blaming Republicans. And the numbers don't lie."
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wa.) noted that Democrats have been trying to present solutions, but they're just being shot down by Republicans and by the president.
One bill Democrats proposed would have fully funded the airport TSA workers as they hammer out the details on DHS funding as a whole. Republicans blocked it. According to Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), both sides found an agreement, but it was Trump who shut the deal down.
While Trump is launching a war, DelBene said that Democrats are "out talking to people" about the affordability crisis. Whereas Trump is calling the crisis a "hoax."