Election Impact: Why Florida Is the Best State to Watch on Election Night
September 2026
Florida isn’t a swing state anymore, and its races aren’t even at the core of the fights for the House and Senate majorities.
But it’s an excellent state to watch on Election Night for early clues to how the rest of the country is going to vote and which party could end up with the upper hand when all of the races are decided.
Maybe most importantly, Florida is a great state to watch because we should know the results early in the evening on Nov. 3.
Remember that The Associated Press and the networks won’t call races until after the polls have closed in any particular state. Polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern in most of Florida, but the Panhandle is in the Central time zone, so race calls won’t come until after 8 p.m. Eastern at the earliest. And even when polls close, there are rarely enough votes counted to project a winner right away.
Even though Florida is the third-largest state in the country by population, we often know results early because the Sunshine State counts its ballots quickly. Mail-in ballots must arrive by the time polls close, and election officials are allowed to start processing early votes in the days leading up to Election Day to expedite the counting process. In contrast, officials in Pennsylvania (8 p.m. Eastern poll closing) and Wisconsin (9 p.m. Eastern) aren’t allowed to start the verification process until Election Day, which delays a full count and reporting results.
Aside from the timing, Florida will also provide a window into whether Republican candidates are still winning in reliably Republican areas.
Florida has had a strong statewide preference for Republicans in recent cycles. More specifically, a typical GOP candidate has a 10.3-point advantage over a Democratic candidate, according to Inside Elections’ Baseline metric. That advantage has grown steadily from a 4.5-point edge in 2018.
So if Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon is running even remotely close to GOP Sen. Ashley Moody and the race is too close to call early — or GOP Rep. Byron Donalds isn’t quickly projected as the winner in the gubernatorial race over former Rep. David Jolly — that’s a sign that 2026 is going to be very different from 2024, when President Donald Trump won Florida by 13 points and the AP projected him as the winner at 8:01 p.m. Eastern.
It’s important to watch a handful of House races as well.
Florida is a key part of Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting plan. The effort led by Gov. Ron DeSantis is designed to deliver as many as four House seats to the GOP. But Trump’s low job approval rating is making it difficult for his party to re-create the coalition that elected him just two years ago.
If there ends up being a Democratic wave, you might be able to use Florida to measure it.
Trump would have finished ahead of Kamala Harris by 9 points in what is now the 15th District, yet Rep. Jared Moskowitz has a serious chance of keeping the seat in the Democratic column against Republican Scott Singer.
Trump would have won the newly drawn 22nd District by 10 points, but Democrat Pia Dandiya and Republican Casey Askar are locked in a tight race.
The new 14th District would have gone to Trump by an 11-point margin, yet Rep. Kathy Castor gives Democrats a chance to hold the Tampa-area seat against former GOP state Rep. Mike Beltran.
And although Trump would have won the newly drawn Orlando-area 9th District by 18 points, Republican Dan Green hasn’t put the race away against Democratic Rep. Darren Soto.
Democratic victories in any of these races would signal a shift in the political landscape from recent cycles. A victory in all of them would suggest a sizable Democratic wave.
In the worst-case scenario for Republicans, the party would lose seats in Florida. The 13th District race between Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and Democrat Leela Gray is competitive in a district where Trump won by 13 points in 2024. And GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar is in a real contest against Democrat Eliott Rodriguez. Trump won her 27th District by 15 points in 2024, but the presidential race was virtually tied in 2020 when he was an unpopular sitting president.
Of course, it’s possible that Republicans hang on to all of the seats they currently hold in Florida and gain two, three or four more. It’s possible they win the statewide races by large margins. Then that could mean that the GOP successfully energized the party faithful in the final weeks and that polls underestimated Republicans again. But that’s not the current trajectory of the cycle.
Watch Florida on Election Night.
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If there ends up being a Democratic wave, you might be able to use Florida to measure it.
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