Gerrymandering is unpopular with Florida voters – my recent survey shows why DeSantis pushed it through anyway

The Sunshine State has joined Texas, California and a handful of other states in the battle of mid-decade redistricting. On April 29, 2026, in a near party-line vote, the Florida Legislature adopted new congressional maps drawn by a staffer of Gov. Ron DeSantis. The GOP-led effort could lead to four more of Florida’s 28 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives turning Republican. Florida redrew its maps with the same underlying population data just four years ago. Mid-decade redistricting in Florida was all but inevitable once Donald Trump made partisan map-drawing a national priority. Florida’s Republican legislators had little incentive – or political cover – to resist. I’m a political scientist, and my research focuses on voting and elections. I’ve served as an expert in redistricting cases in Florida, and I’ve been tracking Florida voters’ opinions on DeSantis’ 2026 redistricting efforts. What Florida voters think about gerrymandering overall University of Florida Ph.D. student Rolland Grady and I conducted a representative survey of more than 2,300 Florida registered voters drawn randomly from the publicly available Florida voter file. Participants had one week, from April 6-13, 2026, to fill out our web-based survey linked to an email invitation. We did not offer