U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz cruised to victory on Tuesday, easily defeating four other candidates in the Democratic primary and all but guaranteeing a 12th term in Congress.
Shortly after 10 p.m., unofficial returns showed Wasserman Schultz with 45.4% of the vote.
She was running about 22 points ahead of former Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness, who was in a distant second place. Elijah Manley was in third place, with 13.9%. The other candidates, Luther Campbell and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, were in single digits.
Thanking supporters, Wasserman Schultz said she would fight to address the needs of people who can’t afford life’s basics, such as rent. “And we’re going to make sure that we fight those damn Republicans and (President Donald) Trump,” pledging to fight “the corruption and the self-dealing and the him profiting himself, taking care of billionaires instead of people who need to make sure that they can live an affordable life. That is what is important to the people of Broward County.”
The Associated Press declared Wasserman Schultz the winner at 7:24 p.m. When CNN showed her as the winner on big screens, the congresswoman’s friends, family and colleagues gathered for her election night party at Lucky Strike Tamarac cheered.
“She did it, y’all!” former Broward Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes declared.
Holness, in a telephone interview Thursday night, said he was proud of the race he ran with far less money than Wasserman Schultz.
“The results are what they are. We had four of us in this race. We split the vote. She had $3.3 million raised. I raised $300,000. It was a tough race,” Holness said. “We did everything we thought we could do. I have to live with that, and the community has to live with that because a plurality of the people who voted, voted for Debbie, and that’s the way our democratic system works.”
Both Holness and Manley said they hadn’t decided if they would run again in 2028. “I have not made any decision on that,” Holness said.
Manley said via text his “focus now is on making sure Democrats up and down the ballot get elected in November. I have many options, including a future run, but first we must take back the House, Senate, and make sure Democrats win across the board in Florida this year.”
Early in the evening, when the outcome became obvious, Manley called Wasserman Schultz to congratulate her on her win, both said.
“I congratulate Debbie on her win. She has to do her part to unite the district. Black voices and votes matter. I will hold her feet to the fire to ensure she delivers for this district,” Manley said.
Brutal campaign
The primary campaign was short, but bruising, after a dizzying whirlwind of political developments during the spring and summer.
Trump told Republican states this year to change their districts in ways designed to elect more Republicans and fewer Democrats. Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature to change the boundaries of all the state’s congressional districts.
In Broward, the state’s most Democratic county, the plan chopped up Wasserman Schultz’s previous district into five pieces. One part went to the reconfigured 20th District, where the DeSantis staffer who crafted the plan crammed as many Democrats as possible to make the adjacent districts more Republican.
The 20th District includes most of Broward’s African American and Caribbean American communities. The four other candidates in the primary, all of whom are Black, said Wasserman Schultz, who is white, shouldn’t have run there, arguing the district should be represented by someone with the lived experience of such a large bloc of residents.
“This is such a difficult and fraught time in our country. There is so much at stake in this moment, and I want people to know that representation matters. It matters, and I will fight to make sure that representation counts again,” Wasserman Schultz said Tuesday night.
Wasserman Schultz, 59, the senior Democrat in the Florida Congressional Delegation, touted her background as someone who has championed all communities, pushed back against Trump, and has the ability to get things done.
She is a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and a co-chair of the Democratic Party Steering and Policy committee, which is part of the House leadership.
Wasserman Schultz had endorsements from some Black community and political leaders. And, notably, from Maisha Williams, the late Congressman Alcee Hastings’ stepdaughter.
Read more Democrat Nieves elected to Florida House, incumbents cruise to victory in primaries
“I will work every day to live up to the legacy of Alcee Hastings,” Wasserman Schultz told her supporters Tuesday night, “to work hard every day to make him proud, to make all of you proud.”
Other candidates
The other candidates tried to forge an agreement to coalesce around one, but the effort failed when they couldn’t agree on who would stay in a one-on-one contest and who would drop out.
Cherfilus-McCormick, 47, was the first Haitian American elected to Congress. In April, she resigned, just before the House Ethics Committee was to consider what sanction to recommend after a subcommittee found she committed 25 ethics violations. She faces a federal criminal trial next year on charges that include some of the issues the House Ethics Committee examined. She has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
Campbell, 65, was leader of the rap group 2 Live Crew, which led to his becoming a free-speech activist. More recently he has been a youth football coach and podcaster and unsuccessful candidate for Miami-Dade County mayor in 2011. He qualified to appear on the ballot using the nickname he’s well known for, “UncleLuke.”
Holness, 68, is a former Broward County commissioner and former Lauderhill city commissioner who lost two previous congressional primaries. He was the first Jamaican American to serve a term as county mayor.
Manley, 27, was the most progressive candidate in the group, and has talked about his upbringing, which includes a time in which his family was homeless. He is now a civic activist who has unsuccessfully run for Broward School Board and the state Legislature.
Looking ahead
On the Republican side, unofficial results at 10:10 p.m. showed Brent Andersen with 53.8% in his party’s primary, far ahead of Lateresa “LA” Jones, Rod Joseph and Carla Spalding. The Associated Press declared Andersen, a Pompano Beach insurance broker, as the winner.
“Voters sent a clear message that they are tired of political opportunism, self-serving leadership, and everything that is so broken about Congress,” Andersen said in a statement, adding he was looking forward to “a spirited conversation with Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz about the future of our country.”
The district is so overwhelmingly Democratic that winning the primary is tantamount to winning the general election.
— The district’s active registered voters are 52.0% Democratic, 26.5% independent/no party affiliation, 18.2% Republican and 3.3% minor parties.
— In the 2024 presidential election, Trump finished 39 points behind Democrat Kamala Harris in the new 20th District’s precincts, data analysts have reported.
— The partisan voting index from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as D+20, which means it performed 20 points more Democratic than the nation during the last two presidential contests.
— Independent ratings, from Cook, Inside Elections and the University of Virginia Center for Politics, all rate it as a solid or safe Democratic district.
20th District
The reconfigured 20th District is basically a square in the central part of Broward, all north of Interstate 595. Most of its eastern boundary is Federal Highway or the FEC railroad tracks. Most of the northern boundary is Sample Road and much of the western boundary is the Sawgrass Expressway.
It has a protrusion that reaches north to the Palm Beach County line to pick up a swath of Democratic voters straddling Interstate 95.
The district includes all or parts of Coconut Creek, Coral Springs, Deerfield Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Lauderdale Lakes, Lazy Lake, Lauderhill, Margate, North Lauderdale, Oakland Park, Plantation, Pompano Beach, Sunrise, Tamarac and Wilton Manors.
Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at [email protected] and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
Read more Tie vote ends impeachment case against Kissimmee mayor