The Tuesday primaries in Florida, Wyoming, California and Alaska landed in the closing stretch of the election season, and they did more than clear the calendar. They put the fight for control of Congress back in focus, with Republicans still holding only a slight advantage as the November midterms draw nearer.
That is why the search now is not just about who won, but about what the races could mean. In Florida, Byron Donalds, backed by Donald Trump, is running to succeed Ron DeSantis as governor. If he wins, he would become the first Black governor of Florida, and the Republican nominee there would go on to face David Jolly. The same day also kept attention on how Republican and Democratic candidates are positioning themselves for the House fight that will help decide whether either party can claim the chamber.
Florida’s congressional map is part of the story. Republican redistricting reshaped the lines, and the effect is visible in Broward County, where a district that has helped send Black Democrats to Congress since 1992 now features one white candidate against four Black candidates. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is seeking a 12th term in Congress there. Her name carries its own weight in the district, but so does the math of the race: four Black candidates are split against one white candidate in a place where questions about representation are no longer abstract.
The friction is sharper because the Broward County seat is not just another local contest. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned earlier in the year under threat of House ethics sanctions, and that departure left the district to be fought over in an atmosphere already shaped by distrust and argument over who speaks for the community. Wasserman Schultz was quoted as saying, in effect, that the district had been betrayed. In a race this charged, the complaint is not only about a candidate’s party or record. It is about who gets to claim continuity in a district that has long been tied to Black Democrats.
Elsewhere, the primaries underline how much the broader map is still unsettled. John James and Lisa Demuth were named among a historic list of Black gubernatorial nominees, and Wes Moore remains the only Black governor in the country as he seeks reelection in November. Those races sit apart from the Florida fight, but together they show why the primaries matter now: they are the last hard test before the November elections that will decide Congress, and the places where district lines, turnout and identity politics collide are likely to matter most when ballots are counted.
What comes next is the general election phase, and the House remains the real prize. The states that voted Tuesday were not simply closing out a season. They were tightening the frame for November, when Republican redistricting, intraparty fights and a slight GOP edge could still add up to control of Congress — or leave the chamber hanging on a handful of contests that looked settled only until the votes were cast.
