Florida’s new map boosts GOP House hopes as Alaska opens Democratic path to Senate
WASHINGTON — Voters across Florida, Alaska and Wyoming are casting primary ballots Tuesday in contests that reach well beyond choosing nominees, exposing two sharply different routes through which control of Congress could change in November.
In Florida, Republicans enter Election Day with a structural advantage created before a single primary ballot was counted: a newly enacted congressional map that could shift as many as four additional U.S. House seats toward the GOP.
Thousands of miles away in Alaska, Democrats see almost the reverse opportunity — a competitive Senate race that could help them attack Republicans' narrow hold on the chamber.
And in Wyoming, a rare political reset is unfolding as voters simultaneously choose candidates for open governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats for the first time in more than three decades.
Together, the elections offer an unusually concentrated preview of the forces shaping the 2026 midterms: redistricting, Donald Trump's influence over Republican nominations, Democratic attempts to broaden the Senate battlefield and generational turnover inside some of the country's most Republican states.
Florida provides the clearest example of how the battle for Congress is being shaped outside the traditional campaign.
The state's new congressional map, pushed through by its Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law this year, is expected to dramatically strengthen the GOP's congressional position.
Republicans currently hold 20 of Florida's 28 House seats. Under the new boundaries, the state's delegation could move as far as 24 Republicans to four Democrats, according to election analysis cited by Reuters.
That potential four-seat swing matters nationally because Republicans hold only a narrow House advantage.
In other words, Florida alone could provide Republicans with additional protection against Democratic gains elsewhere — making Tuesday's congressional primaries part of a much larger battle over the architecture of the House itself.
The new boundaries have also forced established Democrats into unfamiliar political territory.
Former Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is running in a newly configured majority-Black district against several Black candidates, while Rep. Jared Moskowitz, regarded as a centrist Democrat, faces a challenge from progressive Oliver Larkin.
The contests are therefore testing not only whether Democrats can survive a more Republican map but what kind of Democratic candidates can remain competitive under it.
At the top of Florida's ballot is another transition with national implications.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited, ending an eight-year governorship that helped transform Florida from one of America's defining swing states into increasingly reliable Republican territory.
Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds enters the Republican gubernatorial primary as the leading contender against Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and other candidates.
If Donalds ultimately wins the governorship in November, he would become Florida's first Black governor.
His candidacy also creates a political succession test inside the Republican Party.
DeSantis built his national profile partly by establishing a political identity independent of Trump — and eventually challenging him for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Donalds, by contrast, has become a prominent Trump ally.
The primary therefore offers voters a choice that could help determine whether post-DeSantis Florida remains defined primarily by the governor's political model or moves even more firmly into Trump's orbit.
Democrats are attempting something very different.
Former Republican congressman David Jolly, who later left the GOP and became a Democrat, is among the leading candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
A Donalds-Jolly general election would create an unusual political contrast: a Trump-backed Republican seeking to inherit DeSantis' governorship against a former Republican trying to persuade Florida voters that the state's rightward movement has gone too far.
But Florida's significance Tuesday extends well beyond the governor's mansion.
The state is also holding a special Senate election to complete the term of Marco Rubio, who left the chamber to become Trump's secretary of state.
Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, appointed by DeSantis, is heavily favored for her party's nomination.
Democrats are choosing between candidates including Alex Vindman and state Rep. Angie Nixon.
Yet the Senate race presenting Democrats with a potentially more consequential national opportunity is occurring nearly 4,000 miles away.
Alaska could become Democrats' Senate opening
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is seeking another term in Alaska, but former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is attempting to turn the state into one of November's major Senate battlegrounds.
Democrats need to gain at least four Republican-held seats to take control of the 100-member Senate, and election analysts regard Alaska as one of their stronger offensive opportunities.
Peltola brings an unusual electoral history to that challenge.
She became the first Alaska Native elected to Congress when she won the state's House seat in 2022 before losing it to Republican Nick Begich in 2024.
She has also demonstrated substantial fundraising strength.
AP reports Peltola raised approximately $18.5 million, compared with about $11.7 million for Sullivan, giving the Democratic challenger an unusually strong financial position in a state Republicans normally expect to hold.
Alaska's election system adds another layer of uncertainty.
Candidates from all parties compete together in a nonpartisan primary, with the top four advancing to November, when ranked-choice voting determines the winner.
That system could give a moderate Democrat such as Peltola opportunities to attract independents and centrist voters beyond the traditional Democratic base.
But Tuesday's ballot contains an extraordinary complication.
Sullivan is facing another Republican candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.
The incumbent is Dan S. Sullivan.
The similarity has generated accusations that voters could become confused — an unusual factor in what could become one of the country's most important Senate contests.
The primary itself is unlikely to eliminate either major contender, but it can reveal the relative strength of Sullivan and Peltola before they meet again in November.
Wyoming undergoes a political reset
Wyoming is unlikely to determine partisan control through a competitive November general election in the same way Alaska might.
Republicans dominate the state, outnumbering registered Democrats by roughly seven to one.
But Tuesday represents something historically unusual there.
For the first time in 32 years, Wyoming simultaneously has open races for governor, U.S. Senate and its sole U.S. House seat.
Republican Gov. Mark Gordon is leaving office, while Sen. Cynthia Lummis decided not to seek another term.
Rep. Harriet Hageman, who became nationally prominent after defeating Trump critic Liz Cheney in the 2022 Republican primary, is now running for Lummis' Senate seat.
Her departure from the House has triggered a nine-candidate Republican contest to replace her.
The governor's race creates another test of Trump's influence.
State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, who has Trump's endorsement, is competing against former Wyoming House Speaker Eric Barlow, retired Marine Brent Bien and Curt Blake for the Republican nomination.
Because Democrats have not won a statewide Wyoming election in years, winning these Republican primaries may effectively be the decisive political hurdle for several offices.
That makes Wyoming less a test of Republican versus Democratic strength than a measure of which faction of the Republican Party will inherit a rare collection of open positions simultaneously.
The three states therefore tell three different stories about November.
Florida demonstrates how redistricting can alter the House battlefield before voters choose between the parties.
Alaska shows Democrats searching for unconventional territory to overcome their Senate deficit.
Wyoming reveals how Trump's influence continues reshaping Republican succession even where the general-election outcome is unlikely to be competitive.
The most consequential result Tuesday may consequently not be who succeeds Ron DeSantis.
It may be whether the primaries confirm a broader emerging structure for November: Republicans using Florida's redesigned congressional map to build a House firewall while Democrats look to Alaska for one of the Senate seats they desperately need to break through it in the other chamber.