Florida Republicans dramatically redrew four Democratic-held U.S. House districts this year to favor candidates of their own party.

But in all four of those districts, the Democrat won Tuesday night.

Most of the races were not particularly close, either.

In South Florida, incumbent Democrat Jared Moskowitz won despite being drawn out of his district and forced to move into one that supported President Donald Trump in 2024 by more than nine percentage points.

The new 22nd Congressional District, spanning from Broward and Palm Beach across the Everglades to Collier County, went for Trump by 10.7 points two years ago — and for Democrat Pia Dandiya Tuesday by 3.7 points.

In Orlando, map drawers targeted Democratic Rep. Darren Soto by moving him from a +3 Kamala Harris district in 2024 to one that backed Trump by nearly 18 points, but Soto appeared to eke out a victory anyway.

And in the Tampa Bay area, Rep. Kathy Castor defended her suddenly competitive seat.

The plan — recommended by Gov. Ron DeSantis and passed swiftly by the GOP-led Legislature while Trump was pressuring states across the country to redo their maps — didn’t exactly backfire. But it didn’t move the needle. At all.

The partisan makeup of the state’s Congressional delegation appears to be the same as it was before Tuesday night: 20 Republicans and 8 Democrats. Soto’s race was the only one within a four-point margin.

“I think they had a bad calculator,” said Jeff Garcia, a Miami-based Democratic political consultant.

The reason for the faulty calculus? Voters in these swing, largely suburban districts repudiated Trump, Garcia said.

Several voters at the polls Tuesday reflected that.

Jessica Bowlby, a 22-year-old undergraduate student at Florida Gulf Coast University, drove through the Everglades to vote in her home district — FL-22— where Democrat Dandiya defeated GOP candidate Casey Askar by four points.

“Seeing how frustrated the general population has gotten with Donald Trump is really hopeful. I come from a very Republican and conservative family, and many of them have turned their backs on Trump,” Bowlby said.

That comes despite a strong strand of anti-socialist verve in South Florida.

Marie Tufts, a 70-year-old Davie resident said she viewed her generation’s task as one of “canceling out the kids” who have taken a liking to socialist principles.

“It is really important for people like us … to cancel out their vote. We can’t let them ruin it for us just because they don’t know and they’ve never been taught,” Tufts said.

Many Democrats across the country — especially in Florida — leaned in on a message casting Democrats as socialists or even communists. It’s a call back to left wing dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela and other countries, which many South Florida immigrants fled.

Garcia said the results in South Florida were proof positive that the argument doesn’t hold the same water it used to, especially with Trump’s more absolutist governing style, his promised $5,000 check to voters if Republicans held the U.S. House and Senate and his push for the U.S. government to take shares in companies.

“I hope that, once and for all, the communist bogeyman in South Florida has been put to rest. The fearmongering around communism and socialism — people saw right through it. It’s laughable when Trump is trying to give people handouts and the whole thing. It did not work this time. It’s ridiculous and people saw through it,” Garcia said.

There was also the matter of immigration and the rising cost of living, two issues especially salient in South Florida.

They weighed heavy on Luis Silva, 46, and Jessica Mesa, 29, two voters who showed up to a polling place in Moskowitz’s 25th Congressional District and voted for Democrats.

Silva, 46, had just finished a 20-hour road trip from Rhode Island to Fort Lauderdale. He called the price at the pump on his way down “too ridiculous” and said he cast his vote for Democrats to “drop it down a little bit.”

Mesa, who works in sales, brought up the Trump administration’s push for more deportations of undocumented immigrants.

“I don’t like the fact that innocent people are being detained. The things going on with the kids, too, like being separated from families — It’s very heartbreaking and I don’t think it’s fair,” Mesa said.

Though the redistricting effort landed with a thud, Republicans still got to claim statewide races like Sen. Ashley Moody’s winning campaign and Rep. Byron Donalds’ successful bid for governor. Many Republicans like Alex Tucci, a 34-year-old fitness instructor who voted in the same Fort Lauderdale polling location, weren’t exactly giddy about their specific candidates but still went with what they knew.

Tucci said he is not an extreme partisan, but grew up a Republican and generally approves of conservative policies. While he hadn’t followed the issues very closely, Tucci felt that Florida has thrived under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and didn’t want to see radical change.

“I hope they keep things the same,” Tucci said. “We’ve been Republican for a while as a state, so I just kind of want to keep it as what I’m familiar with.”

In a way, Tucci got his wish. Republicans still rule the roost in Tallahassee. Nothing changed in terms of the state’s congressional delegation, despite the state Legislature’s efforts.

Tuesday’s election nearly went sideways for Republicans, with four races going to Republican candidates by about one percentage point or less. Miami Republican Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar, as well as Tampa area Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and Republican candidate Ryan Elijah, appeared to be winning their districts by narrow margins.

Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard Law professor and expert on partisan gerrymandering, offered a warning in a social media post.

“Gerrymandering isn’t yielding the gains GOP hoped. . . IN A BLUE WAVE ENVIRONMENT. In a NEUTRAL environment, they’d be gaining around nine seats net. Even in this environment, their new maps will perform better than their old maps would have,” Stephanopoulos wrote.

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