Likely. With GOP slanted gerrymandering to follow in Florida's State Legislature. This would also give Florida an additional Presidential Electoral College vote and take one away from the same blue state.


https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/gov-desantis-ag-uthmeier-speak-aug-20-2025-lake-worth-florida

"Florida leaders ask Trump administration for extra House seat; mid-decade redistricting possible
By Annabelle Sikes Published August 20, 2025 7:21pm EDT Florida FOX 35 Orlando

The Brief
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican lawmakers are advocating for a new U.S. House seat for the Sunshine State.

The leaders say Florida was undercounted in the 2020 Census.

The lawmakers are seeking a potential mid-decade redistricting to create this extra seat, which would likely be filled by a Republican.

LAKE WORTH, Fla. - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and some Republican lawmakers are advocating for a new U.S. House seat for the Sunshine State, arguing the state was undercounted in the 2020 Census.

DeSantis and other Florida leaders, such as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, are seeking a potential mid-decade redistricting to create this extra seat, which would likely be filled by a Republican, which could increase the party's influence in Congress.

Could Florida earn an extra seat in Congress?
What we know:
DeSantis and Uthmeier made their requests known at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon in Lake Worth.

They said the state has drafted a letter to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Commerce Department requesting that Florida be granted at least one additional seat in the U.S. House. DeSantis said the Trump administration should do just that for Florida and Texas in the interest of fairness ahead of the 2026 Midterms.

Uthmeier said there were several irregularities in the reapportionment of seats in 2020, which denied Florida at least one House seat. He argued the federal government can reallocate seats in the House based on data available now, and the state deserves as many as five.

An additional seat for a state could provide several benefits, including increased influence in the House of Representatives, potentially greater access to federal funding, enhanced constituent services and increased sway in the electoral college.

Both DeSantis and Uthmeier argue that undocumented immigrants should not be counted in the official census, as they say it gives too much political influence to Democratic states such as California. They said this also denies tough-on-immigration states, such as Florida, the same sway.

What we don't know:
If the Florida lawmakers' request is approved, this would take away one seat from another state. It is unclear how this would be decided or which other states could potentially lose a seat.

‘We want this fixed now’
What they're saying:
"This is something that we are going to have to address as a state," DeSanis said. "I think there's broad acknowledgment that this is something that's going to have to happen. … You have some districts that have not reflected the population change that's happened."

"It's clear that there's been, for a long time now, a deep state effort to manipulate the census and shift electoral power to blue states, to sanctuary states," Uthmeier said. "As you see a lot of Democratic leaders engaging in hysteria over the deportation of people that are here illegally. Many of these people who have committed very heinous crimes. It's clear that they are freaking out because the jig is up. They had a deep seated plan to open the boarder and flood these people in."

"Florida was robbed by the left’s multi-year effort to rig the 2020 Census, and Floridians didn’t get the representation they deserve in Congress," Uthmeier said. "President Trump called for a new census, and I’m ready to work with Gov. DeSantis to bring the president solutions and get it done."

2020 Census results in Florida
The backstory:
Based on the 2020 Census and the subsequent reapportionment, Florida gained one Congressional seat, increasing its total from 27 to 28 representatives in the U.S. House. This change became effective for elections starting in 2022.

While Florida gained one seat, some Republican lawmakers suggest that an undercount in the census potentially limited the state's political influence and could have resulted in a gain of two seats instead of one.

DeSantis has blamed several different factors for the 2020 Census results, including former President Barack Obama, who served from 2009 to 2017.

Prior mid-decade redistricting
Dig deeper:
According to the Library of Congress, mid-decade congressional redistricting, once common in the 19th century, has reemerged in recent decades.

In the late 1800s, states frequently redrew congressional districts between censuses, with Ohio altering its maps seven times between 1878 and 1892. Some states, like Connecticut, kept the same lines for decades.

After largely fading in the 20th century, mid-decade redistricting returned following the 2000 census, most notably in Texas in 2003. That map led to the Supreme Court’s 2006 League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry decision, which found that federal law does not prohibit legislatures from redrawing districts mid-decade.

Since then, lawmakers have repeatedly tried to restrict the practice. Nearly 50 bills have been introduced in Congress since the mid-2000s to bar states from conducting more than one redistricting per census cycle.

Proposals such as the John Tanner Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act, the Coretta Scott King Mid-Decade Redistricting Prohibition Act, and the For the People Act have all sought limits, though none have become law. Some measures include exceptions for court-ordered or technical changes.

Other bills, however, would require states to redraw maps mid-decade under certain conditions, showing Congress remains divided on how to regulate the timing and frequency of redistricting.

What is gerrymandering?
The political term "gerrymander" refers to the drawing of political boundaries for state and federal offices that benefit one particular party.

It traces back to a Massachusetts governor and a mythical salamander, according to the Library of Congress. The word first appeared in the Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812, mocking a redistricting plan signed by Gov. Elbridge Gerry that reshaped state senate districts to favor his Democratic-Republican Party. Though Gerry privately disliked the plan and lost reelection, his party held control of the legislature.

One of the oddly shaped districts was said to resemble a salamander. A political cartoon by Boston artist Elkanah Tisdale exaggerated the district into a winged dragon-like creature, cementing the name "Gerry-mander." The identity of the person who coined the term remains unknown.

Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, former congressman and later vice president under James Madison, saw his name permanently tied to partisan mapmaking through the cartoon that turned him into a symbol of political manipulation.

How could this impact the U.S. House?
Big picture view:
If the potential mid-decade redistricting to create the extra seat is approved, the seat would likely be filled by a Republican, which would increase the party's influence in the U.S. House.

Earlier this month, Trump said he had instructed his administration to start work on a "new" census. According to a social media post by Trump, the new census would exclude millions of people living in the country without legal status.

The Source: This story was written based on information shared by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier at a news conference on Aug. 20, 2025.