The headaches are intensifying for Florida Democrats as retirements, candidate recruitment challenges and a burgeoning redistricting fight add to the party’s troubles in an already difficult midterm election year.
The party’s hopes of winning approval of new political maps proposed by the Republican-controlled state Senate — with which Democrats were largely satisfied — are now mired in uncertainty after Gov. Ron DeSantis(R) took the unusual step of submitting his own redistricting plan that would drastically claw back the number of Democratic districts.