Late yesterday news broke from Hillsborough that Rep. Susan Valdes, re-elected last month to her 4th term in the Florida House representing the 64th House district, has changed parties. Valdes has left the Democratic Party and become a Republican, joining the GOP caucus in the Florida House and with it further expanding the Republican supermajority in the chamber to an 86-34 margin. This marks the largest Republican House advantage to open a legislative term in the history of Florida.

While a still-larger Republican supermajority in the House is the clear headline of the day, the more long term story underneath the surface of this news is how the very political nature of a district like Valdes' 64th makes such a switch not only possible but indeed a move fully in trend with her district's changing political inclinations as a whole. House District 64, found in central Hillsborough county, is the only House district outside of southeast Florida and greater Orlando with a Hispanic plurality, with 43% of the district's active registered voters reporting an Hispanic ethnicity. And like its counterparts in the southeast and greater Orlando, the 64th's Hispanic population has shifted in massive numbers from voting Democratic to voting Republican over the past few years.

It wasn't all that long ago that the 64th District (then the 62nd District as numbered on the 2010-2020 Florida House map, but henceforth to be described as the 64th for clarity) was one of Florida's most stalwart Democratic districts. Indeed one only need go back 8 years to find this part of Florida universally colored in Democratic blue by precinct as Hillary Clinton won by a nearly 2-to-1 margin over Donald Trump within the boundaries of the present HD-64, 63-33%. So heavily Democratic was this part of Florida that Republicans didn't even field a candidate for Florida House here in 2016 or the subsequent 2018 elections. While Clinton narrowly lost Florida overall, the strength she showed for Democrats in predominantly Hispanic areas of the state was a key reason for Democratic optimism about their chances in Florida moving forward from '16: at minimum, of their ability to keep the Sunshine State a front and center national battleground in Presidential and other statewide elections.

Above: 2016 Presidential election results by precinct, current boundaries of House District 64.

For the next couple of years little changed in areas like HD-64. Andrew Gillum won within this district's geography by just over 27 points vs then-candidate Ron DeSantis, though in a race decided by less than one-half of one percent statewide even tiny shifts like this vs 2016 were crucial components of the DeSantis victory statewide. But this did little if anything to indicate any true change in voting patterns.

But in the 2020 general election one saw the very first signs of the transformative shift in voting patterns amongst Hispanics in Florida. Donald Trump's increased margin of victory in Florida compared to 2016 was fueled by marked improvement with Hispanic voters. In Florida's 3 majority-Hispanic counties (Miami-Dade, Osceola and Hendry), Trump saw a net 20-point improvement in his 2020 performance compared with 2016, a dramatic change which helped to offset the fact that in Florida's other 64 counties Trump had actually lost a little under 1 percent of his margin from '16.

In HD-64 this change began to shift the foundation of the district as well. It was still a district easily held by Democrats to be sure, but what had been a 30-point top of the ticket margin just four years earlier in HD-64 was sliced to 16 points, 57-41% for Biden over Trump. Unlike 2016, a small patch of red on the precinct level map came through as Trump narrowly won a handful of precincts within the district.

Above: 2020 Presidential election results by precinct, current boundaries of House District 64.

Republican advances with Hispanic voters across Florida have only accelerated since the 2020 results gave the first indications of political realignment. 2022 was the first year in modern Florida history where newly registering Hispanic voters were more likely to register as Republicans than Democrats, and DeSantis' landslide victory over Charlie Crist that November further cemented an unmistakable trend. While a nearly 20-point margin of victory statewide for DeSantis meant he was improving Republican performance across the board in Florida, the totals from heavily Hispanic areas stood out even accounting for this fact. DeSantis won Miami-Dade and Osceola counties, the first statewide Republican in generations to do so, and in HD-64 DeSantis also flipped the area red with a 50-49% win over Crist in this district. Rep. Valdes overperformed Crist's numbers in the district, but even downballot the trend was clear as a 20-point win just two years prior fell to just 7 points for Valdes over an underfunded challenger in a seat not on either party's radar statewide.

Following this huge shift in the 2022 elections the 64th District began to get some notice for the way in which the district has been changing. The seat shifted from Solid to Lean Democratic on the Florida Chamber's 2024 Partisan Performance Index following the 2022 elections, and members of the Florida Chamber Political Institute heard on multiple instances over the past two years about this seat's potential to become a key battleground district. Those presentations often focused on the 2026 election cycle, when this would become an open seat race, a prediction that's now come true ahead of schedule.

President-Elect Trump's double-digit win last month over Vice President Harris last month made clear Florida's rightward shift as a state. Despite the decisive nature of Trump's victory in Florida however it was a smaller percentage margin than was seen in the 2022 Republican landslide across Florida: the 13 point Trump winning margin down just over 6 percent from DeSantis' 19 point win. This is broadly reflected across the state by slightly lower margins for Trump 2024 vs DeSantis 2022 in most parts of the state. The exception to this however was in areas with high Hispanic populations, where a continued rightward shift amongst this demographic offset the slight shift back of Florida as a whole.

This continued move of the Hispanic electorate shows up in HD-64's results from last month. Despite a 6 point smaller margin of victory statewide compared with Gov. DeSantis in 2022, Trump actually improved upon DeSantis' win in HD-64 by 2 points, winning the district 51-48% over Kamala Harris. What just two presidential elections prior had been a map colored all in shades of Democratic blue in the 64th is now a mostly Republican red map by precinct, with the 64th district improving by a net 33 points for Republicans in just 8 years' time.

Above: 2024 Presidential election results by precinct, House District 64.

In this context, Rep. Valdes' switch to join the Republican Party stands out less as a shocking turn of events and instead as the latest indication of an undeniable change in the political nature of heavily Hispanic areas of Florida like the 64th district. One of Florida's most reliably blue districts less than a decade ago now stands out as one of the state's central battleground districts. Valdes is term-limited in 2026, leaving this as an Open seat race for the '26 election cycle. It was already destined to be a top target of both parties given the seismic shifts in the electorate of the district, and Valdes' party change only puts this central Hillsborough district further into the political spotlight over these next two years.

For a deeper dive political analysis into House District 64 or any of the 120 House or 40 Senate seats of the Florida Legislature, contact Alex Coelho. And to learn more about ways your company can support the Florida Chamber's efforts to elect pro-job champions of free enterprise, contact Frank Walker.

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