Pia Dandiya, a former high school principal, won an open congressional seat in Florida on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, notching a victory for Democrats in a Republican-leaning district seen as a bellwether for both parties.
Ms. Dandiya defeated Casey Askar, a Republican businessman and former Marine, in Florida’s new 22nd Congressional District, which stretches west from Broward County to Marco Island on the state’s Gulf Coast.
Republican state lawmakers reshaped the district this year, one of four they gerrymandered to favor their party. President Trump won the district by 10 percentage points in 2024, but the race between Ms. Dandiya, of Palm Beach Gardens, and Mr. Askar, of Naples, proved quite competitive.
Neither candidate was well known to voters before the election, making their matchup a barometer of how a generic Republican candidate might do against a generic Democratic candidate in a tough year for Republicans. As in much of the country, the race centered on the economy and corruption.
Florida tends to report election results earlier and faster than many other states. Those results can offer clues about how other races might go. Democrats did well nationally in the last two midterm elections, in 2022 and 2018, yet have struggled in Florida, which has become more Republican leaning.
Ms. Dandiya, whose parents immigrated from India, is set to become Florida’s first South Asian member of Congress.
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