DeSantis draws congressional map dramatically expanding GOP’s edge in Florida

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a new congressional map that would create four more Republican-leaning districts and completely wipe out Democrats’ national redistricting advantage.

The map — which carves up a Black-held district — was released Wednesday afternoon, just days after state lawmakers said they would defer to the GOP governor on the new congressional boundaries. The Republican-controlled state Legislature drew maps with less of a GOP advantage, but DeSantis vetoed them last month.

DeSantis’ map would create 20 Republican seats and 8 Democratic ones based on 2020 electoral data, according to Matthew Isbell, a leading Florida-based Democratic data consultant who analyzed the maps Wednesday evening. Florida’s congressional delegation consists of 16 Republicans and 11 Democrats in the House. The state was apportioned an additional House seat after the 2020 Census.

“It’s so blatantly partisan,” Isbell said. “The only way you can create a 20-and-8 map… was to basically say screw Black representation.”

One top Republican in the Florida Legislature privately agreed, telling NBC News that the maps were probably drawn with partisan intent by DeSantis — a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate who faces re-election this year.

DeSantis has said his administration is complying with the law, which prohibits partisan gerrymandering.

Court challenges appear inevitable, but there is little time to change the map before the August primary in the lead-up to the November midterms.

Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who studies elections, said DeSantis appeared to be inviting lawsuits. The governor’s map “is clearly being drawn to challenge the remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court has not struck down,” he told NBC News.

Despite controlling significantly less of the redistricting process nationally, Democrats had managed to cobble together some gains in states like New York this year. According to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, Democrats have so far netted 1.5 seats, while eliminating 1.5 Republican seats nationally.

While the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature had advanced maps that slightly advantaged Republicans, DeSantis sought significant gains for his party; in particular, he demanded that lawmakers dismantle largely Black congressional districts and argued that the North Florida seat that ran from Tallahassee to Jacksonville held by Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

“We are not going to have a 200-mile gerrymander that divvies up people based on the color of their skin,” DeSantis said Tuesday at a news conference in Miami. “That is wrong. That’s not the way we’ve governed in the state of Florida. And obviously that will be litigated.”