Emily Gregory’s victory in the previously GOP-held district is the latest Democratic upset before the November midterms.
Published On 25 Mar 2026
Democratic candidate Emily Gregory is projected to win a special election for a Florida state House of Representatives seat that includes United States President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, in the latest sign of strain for Trump’s Republican Party.
With almost all votes counted from the Tuesday election, Gregory led her Trump-endorsed opponent Jon Maples by 2.4 percentage points, reported the AP news agency.
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Democrats hailed the victory in the previously Republican-controlled House District 87 as a sign voters are turning against Republicans and Trump before November’s midterm elections. Democrats registered electoral gains in the November 2025 gubernatorial and mayoral elections, with the cost of living cited as a major issue on people’s minds.
The US decision to join Israel in attacking Iran has driven up oil and gas prices, putting further inflationary pressures on Americans.
“If Mar-a-Lago is vulnerable, imagine what’s possible this November,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. She said Tuesday’s race was the 29th seat that Democrats have flipped from Republican control since Trump took office.
“Gas prices are spiking, grocery costs are up, and families can’t get by – it’s clear voters at the polls are fed up with Republicans,” Williams said.
Gregory grew up north of Palm Beach in Stuart. She’s the owner of a fitness company that works with pregnant and postpartum women, and she has never run for elected office before.
Speaking to MSNOW after her victory, she said she was “pretty shocked” and “having a fairly out-of-body experience”.
Gregory’s victory is the latest in a series of improbable special election outcomes across the country since Trump returned to the White House more than a year ago, including several notable Democratic wins in Republican-controlled Florida.
In December, Eileen Higgins won the race for Miami mayor, the first time a Democrat had led the city in nearly three decades. She defeated a Trump-endorsed Republican in a campaign that leaned heavily into criticism of the president’s immigration crackdown, a message that resonated with the city’s large Hispanic population.
Further west in Texas, Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a reliably Republican state Senate district in a special election in January.
Trump immediately distanced himself from the loss in a district he’d won by 17 points in 2024, saying “I’m not involved in that” even though he had endorsed the Republican candidate.
Trump, who keeps Mar-a-Lago as his official residence, voted by mail in the Tuesday election, and his ballot was counted, Palm Beach County voter records show. He chose a mail ballot despite publicly bashing the voting method as a source of fraud and pushing Congress to curtail the practice.
