Aided by a surge of left-leaning voters in this week’s midterm election, Democrats in Florida appear to have maintained control of four U.S. House districts targeted by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ redistricting efforts.

But the margin of victory was 5% percentage points or less in each of those races, raising the question of whether Democrats can hold onto those congressional seats in an election cycle that’s less advantageous for their party.

In the closest of those races, Central Florida Democrat Darren Soto looks to have eked out a narrow win, securing his sixth term in Congress, with a .52 percentage point lead over his Republican opponent.

While the Associated Press had not called that race by late Wednesday and the Republican candidate, Dan Green, had not conceded publicly, Soto sent out a statement declaring victory.

“Despite the Florida Republican legislature’s efforts to redraw me out of this district, my record of delivering for Florida showed voters that I am a reliable fighter for them in Congress,” Soto’s statement said.

Soto, who has Puerto Rican heritage, likely would have clinched his re-election bid easily in his formerly Hispanic-majority district. But at the governor’s direction, Republicans in the Florida Legislature this spring broke up the Hispanic voting bloc, reduced the number of voters in blue-leaning areas of Orange and Osceola counties assigned to Soto’s district and added tens of thousands of voters in Republican-favoring parts of the state, including the rural middle and coastal areas around Vero Beach.

Republicans now hold a 12 percentage point registration advantage in the district, which takes in communities nowhere near suburban Orlando and Kissimmee, where Soto lives.

But Soto, 48, appeared to prevail this week, a feat that likely surprised Republican leaders and some political analysts.

Democrats also triumphed in three other districts that Republicans hoped to win by fiddling with boundary lines. Those included Rep. Kathy Castor’s Tampa-area district, which she comfortably won by 5 percentage points, and Rep. Jared Moskowitz’s South Florida district, which he secured by a similar margin of victory.  And in an open South Florida district, newcomer Piya Dandiya, a Democrat, won by nearly 4 percentage points.

Similar efforts by Republicans to gain control of seats held by Democrats also fell short in other states, including in Texas, where GOP candidates lost four of five seats they thought they could flip by redrawing boundary lines. In addition, Texas Democrats won two seats previously held by Republicans, giving their party a net gain that state.

“Everybody was surprised throughout the country that the Republican redistricting did not work out the way the Republicans thought it would,” said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.

But this year was very unusual in that frustrations with President Donald Trump and problems created or exacerbated by Republican leaders, like the Iran War, high gas prices and inflation, energized left-leaning voters and prompted swing voters to cast ballots for Democrats. That allowed Democrats to gain control of both the U.S. House and Senate and send candidates to the governor’s mansion in states like Texas that have been dominated by Republicans for years.

t’s impossible to know what will happen two years from now, Jarvis said. If the war with Iran draws to a close and problems like inflation improve, voters might reward Democrats by re-electing them, even in red-leaning districts. But if the war drags on and the cost of necessities like gas and groceries continues to rise, that could be a problem.

And of course, during a presidential year, the nominee at the top of the ticket matters, he said, and an inspiring candidate like former President Barack Obama can help other party members in down-ballot races.

“A mid-term election is very different from a presidential year election because you just get so many more people who come out,” Jarvis said. “If you have a very popular Democrat, somebody like Obama was in 2008, that’s very different than if you have somebody like John Kerry, who was not a very popular candidate in 2004.”

Republican congressional candidate Ryan Elijah, with his wife, Tasha, comes out to meet with supporters during an election night party at Decision Tactical in Sanford on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Elijah, who is in a tight race with Democratic challenger Bale Dalton for Congressional District 7, remained optimistic while addressing supporters as they awaited the final vote count. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Republican congressional candidate Ryan Elijah, with his wife, Tasha, comes out to meet with supporters during an election night party in Sanford on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Elijah, who was in a tight race with Democratic Bale Dalton for Congressional District 7, declared victory, Wednesday, though Dalton has not conceded. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)

In addition to Soto’s race, the AP had yet to call four other U.S. races in Florida, including Congressional District 7, which takes in all of Seminole County and part of Volusia County. In that race, Republican Ryan Elijah, who defeated Rep. Cory Mills in the GOP primary in August, had a lead of about .52 percentage points over Democrat Bale Dalton late Wednesday.

Roughly 300 votes in Seminole were yet to be counted, according to the elections supervisor’s website. Those include provisional ballots that require review and determination by the canvassing board and mail ballots that require signature cures. Voters have until 5 p.m. on Thursday to submit affidavits to cure their ballots.

Elijah declared victory on Wednesday afternoon, posting to social media that his team was “fully confident” he had the votes he needed to win.

“We will continue to watch closely, but there simply aren’t enough ballots to overcome a lead of nearly 2,000 votes,” he wrote.

But Dalton countered in a statement of his own that the race was not over and said that he had not received “verified information” about the number of ballots left to be tallied.

“This race remains too close to call and it is incumbent on all of us not to pretend otherwise until all ballots are counted,” he wrote.