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NPR Announcer
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Mark
Hi, this is Mark from Detroit. I'm currently sitting on my front porch enjoying the fresh air and the crocuses that are just starting to bloom in my yard.
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Deepa Shivaram
This podcast was recorded at 1:35pm on Monday, March 31, 2025.
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Mark
The news may have changed by the time you hear this, but my garden certainly has. Spring has sprung in Detroit.
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Deepa Shivaram
Oh, that was a lovely timestamp.
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Domenico Montanaro
That's what those little purple flowers are on your lawn? I guess. Crocus.
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Deepa Shivaram
How that is, I had to Google it.
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Domenico Montanaro
Yeah.
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Deepa Shivaram
Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House.
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Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
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Deepa Shivaram
And today on the show, we're looking at two special elections to the House of Representatives that are getting a lot of attention. They're both in Florida. Voting in both of these races ends tomorrow, and NPR's Greg Allen has been covering them. Hey, Greg.
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Greg Allen
Hello.
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Deepa Shivaram
Thanks for joining us. So these seats opened up when Mike Waltz was picked to be President Trump's national security advisor. And the other seat opened up when Matt Gaetz was originally nominated to be attorney general. But then Gates, of course, withdrew from contention before his confirmation hearings. But that seat remained open. So just paint us a picture here. Tell us about these districts. Why don't we start with Mike Waltz's. Where in Florida is it and who's running to replace him?
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Greg Allen
Well, this is on the east coast of Florida, the Atlantic coast, kind of central Florida, just south of St. Augustine, extending down close to Orlando. This was a district, an area that actually the current governor, Ron DeSantis, was representing some parts of this back when it was before it was redrawn. So you've got two people running for it. One is a personal friend of Donald Trump, I think you'd say Randy Fine of state legislator who's been around for quite some time, very contentious, kind of a bombastic politician, says what he means, very conservative, one of the first to endorse Trump in the state legislature. And so he has Trump's endorsement in return. The person running against him is Josh Weil, a public school teacher for Josh. Wow. He's got some support from Democrats nationally, of course. We've had the head of the dnc, Ken Martin here over the weekend campaigning. He's also received an endorsement from Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator. Of course Sanders hasn't been here, but that carries a lot of weight in Florida.
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Deepa Shivaram
Okay, so two very different ends of the spectrum. What about Matt Gates's former district?
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Greg Allen
Well, that's up in the Panhandle near Pensacola. It's an area that has near some military bases. So you've got a lot of veterans, retired military up there. So it's been very conservative. Like the district that Weil and Fine are in, it's a heavily Republican district. Both have been represented by Republicans for many years. I think that both candidates won in November by the Republicans won by more than 30 points. So that's this, this, these are red districts for sure. Up there. The person running is Gay Valamont, who was beat by Gates by more than 30 points in November. Then of course we know what happened with Gates and running in against her. Who now who's also has Trump's endorsement is the state's chief financial officer, Jimmy Petronis. He's a, he's a longtime pal up there in the Panhandle. His family owns a restaurant, well known, I think well liked up there. So that is maybe a tougher lift in some ways for Democrats. But both of those are going to be long shot races in which the Republicans will be, will be favored.
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Deepa Shivaram
Okay. Wow. There's a lot of factors to get into. But I do want to touch on something you said a minute ago, Greg, which was talking about some of the money, the enormous amount of money that is coming in to both of these races. And Domenico, I want to bring you in here as well because I know this is something you've been tracking when it comes to the funding for these two races. I mean, who is spending the most money? Is it really impacting the race in terms of, you know, obviously I'm sure a ton of advertisements on television, but how is it really impacting what folks are seeing on the ground?
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Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, I'm sure Greg can speak to what he's seeing on the airwaves. But just encrunching the numbers from here, I mean the Democrats in these, both of these races have far outspent and out raised the Republicans in these races. And you look at Florida 6, the Democrat in that race has raised almost $10 million, $9.5 million raised, $8.2 million spent. The Republican hasn't even ra dollars, which is really a humongous disparity I think indicative of the Fact that this is one of the first races since Trump has gotten into office in a real area where Democrats are trying to push to, you know, voice their frustration. And it doesn't really mean that Democrats are going to win here. As we know, money doesn't always mean that, but the margins are important. I mean, often victory in special elections are measured in the margins.
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Deepa Shivaram
Yeah, absolutely. Greg, what are you seeing?
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Greg Allen
We had the head of the DNC here over the weekend, Ken Martin, and one of the things he said, he was asked repeatedly that news events, you know, what would victory look like? And he says, well, of course we want to win, but this is a district that Donald Trump won in November by more than 30 points. So anything we do that's, that's inside those margins is going to be considered a win for us. So I think he's kind of like lowering expectations because people get excited when it looks like Democrats have a chance to pick up these two red seats. It may happen. You know, with all the money disparity we've talked about, that's important. But as we've seen many races, money doesn't determine the outcome by any means.
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Deepa Shivaram
No, definitely not determining the outcome. And also just the outsized. To your point, both of you like the outsized attention that this race is getting. It's an off year. It's right after the presidential. You know, there's all this attention and that kind of fuels some of the money, but it doesn't necessarily change the fact that there's a 30 point difference here maybe.
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Domenico Montanaro
Yeah. And to just put this race in context, put the money in context, I mean, the $8.2 million is spent as of March 12, by the way. So, you know, more than that has been spent through the entire thing would have put this race in the top 20 of all House races for spending for any single person spending of all of the 2024 congressional race cycle, they had 20 months to do that from January 2023. This has been only two months and they're spending all of that kind of money. So clearly Democrats at least want to be able to shrink the margins considerably. If it's a 30 point win for the Republican, it's certainly going to be a black eye for Democrats because they spent all this money. But if it's within, you know, 15, 10, 15 points, I mean, they clearly made some inroads here in a district that they really shouldn't have, especially if it's under 10, I would say the margins are really what's important. And I think to put that in context, the margins over the last 20 years or so, usually when you have special elections, when they all go in one direction, that's the party that winds up winning the House in the next cycle. And with this being the closest house since 1917, you know, these margins are going to really matter both in the House and at the ballot box.
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Greg Allen
This idea about money, what's changed so much, and Dometico talks about this a lot, I think is that, you know, by money come most of this money came in from outside the district. So it, money is great, but doesn't tell you about who's going to come out to vote, which is always the, the key factor which determines wins, especially in an off off year election, like there's a special election. And so you really don't know what that's going to look like. We've had a couple of polls in Florida. One was commissioned by the website Florida Politics. It shows Josh Wild down just by a few points. I think it's four points in that poll. Another poll released done by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, done for an internal polling for Republicans, was released as well. And that shut him down by about the same margin. And both of those are inside the margin of error. So that suggests it's going to be tight and there's a chance that Democrats could pull this out.
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Domenico Montanaro
Well, and that clearly, I think probably tells you why President Trump wound up pulling the nomination to UN Ambassador for Elise Stefanik in upstate New York. Because, because you see this kind of polling coming in in districts that are plus 30 for Republicans and Trump and Mike Johnson, the House speaker, don't want to take any chances.
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Deepa Shivaram
All right. We're going to take a quick break and more in a moment.
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Tanya
NPR informs and connects communities around the country, providing reliable information in times of crisis. Federal funding helps us fulfill our mission to create a more informed public and ensures that public radio remains available to everyone. Learn more about safeguarding the future of public media, visit protectmypublicmedia.org this is Tanya.
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Amanda Knox
Mosley, co host of Fresh Air. Amanda Knox spent nearly four years in prison for a murder she did not commit. When she was exonerated, she made an unusual decision to befriend the prosecutor who argued for her guilt. Maybe he could help her make sense of her case. I spent years thinking about it and trying to understand it until I realized.
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Tanya
That I could just ask.
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Amanda Knox
Listen to this interview on the FRESH AIR podcast.
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NPR Announcer
Making time for the news is important, but when you need a break, we've got you covered on all songs considered. NPR's music podcast think of it like a music discovery show. A well deserved escape with friends. And yeah, some serious music insight.
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Deepa Shivaram
I'm gonna keep it real.
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Greg Allen
I have no idea what the story is about.
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NPR Announcer
Hear new episodes of All Songs Considered every Tuesday wherever you get podcasts.
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Deepa Shivaram
Welcome back. And Domenico, you know, these districts that we've been talking about, they are reliably Republican districts. At any other time, maybe in a not post 2024 period, we would probably not be talking about them because Republicans historically have done really well there. But you know, these are also the first special elections of Trump's term. Oftentimes they can be proxies or just a little bit of a litmus test to see how people are feeling about the current administration. Do you think that's a fair way to sort of interpret the races coming up this week?
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Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, it's the first sort of temperature check of how people are feeling about the Trump presidency and which way the political winds are blowing. You know, often these off year elections right after a president is sworn in, it's the first opportunity for the out party to register their frustration. And if their frustration isn't that high, usually it shows that the president is doing a pretty good job or that is that his policies are pretty popular or at least that the other side's base is not that fired up. You know, you don't want to overread the results of special elections, but in aggregate they do give you a pretty good sign of things to come.
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Deepa Shivaram
Yeah, it's always interesting to me because it's a both and of you know, how people are feeling about XYZ administration that's currently in power. But there is also that question of like, is the other side amped up enough? And as we know from polling, you know, Donald Trump isn't exactly super, super popular right now, but Democrats aren't really popular right now either. And so it's sort of an interesting, you know, bifurcated sit. One other thing I wanted to ask about though is, you know, there have been some early warning signs that the White House is pretty worried about the slim majority of Republicans that they have in the House right now. And one of those signs was that President Trump pulled the nomination of New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. You had mentioned this a bit ago to be ambassador to the United Nations. And you know, that would have created, of course, another vacancy in the House with these tight margins. How concerned should Republicans be about their tightening margins in the House with these two races tomorrow?
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Domenico Montanaro
Well, I think clearly they're concerned, at least enough to want to be able to shore it up. I mean, often when you've won a presidential election, that party's base winds up kind of going dormant a little bit. They hibernate until they get woken up. You know, these are all districts, including the Stefanik district, that are very heavily Republican. And if those margins are all tight, that's gonna dominate the news cycle for a couple of days at least. And that's certainly not something that President Trump or the Republicans in Congress are gonna wanna beating back. All of these questions from reporters, people sort of opening their eyes and saying, is this a problem with the Republican Party? When, if you think about a week, week and a half ago, people were talking about the Democratic dysfunction, the low approval ratings for the party at historic lows, and that's where either party wants to be, is pointing at the other one. Not having that spotlight shown on you.
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Deepa Shivaram
Yeah. The thing that I'm also keeping in mind, and, Greg, I'd love to get you in on this as well, is that, you know, I'm from Virginia. The gubernatorial race in Virginia always takes place the year after a presidential. Right. And that, to me at least, used to be one of the first tests, because it's like a governor's race in a pretty purple state. Good litmus test. But all of these special elections are popping up pretty soon into Trump's term. Like it's only been two, two and a half months now. And that's kind of giving it a different vibe than say, you know, all the way until November.
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Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, well, that's because Trump is aligned with so many of these Republicans in Congress that he chose them to be in his administration.
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Greg Allen
Yeah. You know, and I want to throw in this Florida angle here, which is that Democrats have been on the ropes here for quite some time, and it seems like every round that comes around, they take it on the chin again. And, you know, we've got a history here of hopeful Democrats who are just left by this roadside who thought they were going to win and they don't. And that's. That's what people say over and over again here, is that, don't get your hopes up here, Democrats, but the fact that Ken Martin, the DNC chair, was here, the fact that outside money's coming in, the DNC threw money here. They always say that. The Democrat National Party always says it's going to devote money to Florida, but as it's tended more red in recent years, they really haven't, you know, because it's a lost cause. So there's a sign here of like there's hope finally springing up among Democrats and that maybe we can bring in some outside money. Maybe we can come up with some good candidates. Maybe we can get a win, you know, in a state that's still pretty closely divided, Republicans have a million point lead, but this is a state with more than 23 million residents, you know, so Democrats should be competitive here. They are not. They think that this might be the beginning of a comeback for them.
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Domenico Montanaro
And that infrastructure is really important to build at a party level. And it takes money to do that. Obviously. Obviously. Obviously. We should also say that money isn't everything in politics. Certainly we've seen Democrats spend a ton of money in the past couple of presidential elections in a lot of these House races, and they don't always go their way. And the tide is sort of turned in Democrats favor when it comes to outside money, but it hasn't turned in its favor when it comes to that being enough to get voters out to the polls to vote for their agenda.
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Deepa Shivaram
I know voters will be voting. That's really the only thing we can measure anything by. We're going to leave it there for today. And Greg will be watching the results as they come in tomorrow. Greg Allen, thanks so much for joining us.
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Greg Allen
You're welcome.
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Deepa Shivaram
I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House.
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Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [14:47]
Deepa Shivaram
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Deepa. I cover the White House. Oh, I don't. Why did I not say my last name one second?
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Domenico Montanaro
I don't know. But I was gonna go just my first name.
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Deepa Shivaram
Then I was like, are we changing so.
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NPR Announcer
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Greg Allen
Ketamine is helpful for getting one out of a negative frame of mind.
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NPR Announcer
If psychedelics are being championed as the next frontier for mental health, what impact are they already having on some of the world's most powerful men? Prepare for your mind to be blown on the It's Been a Minute podcast.
- [15:36]
From NPR at Planet Money. We'll take you from a race to make rum in the Caribbean.
- [15:42]
Greg Allen
Our rum from a quality standpoint is the best in the world.
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NPR Announcer
To the labs dreaming up the most advanced microchips.
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Deepa Shivaram
It's very rare for people to go.
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NPR Announcer
Inside to the back rooms of New York's Diamond District.
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Greg Allen
What you looking for?
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NPR Announcer
The stupid guy here, they're all smart.
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Don'T worry about Planet Money from npr. We go to the Story and take you along with us wherever you get your podcasts.