Southeast
First election test for Trump's term surprisingly close in FL, GOP looks to increase razor-thin House majority
Voters in two congressional districts in Florida head to the polls on Tuesday, as Republicans aim to keep control of both solidly red seats and give themselves slightly more breathing room in the House, where they hold a razor-thin majority.
However, the Democratic Party candidates in the two special elections have vastly outraised the Republican nominees – thanks to an energized base eager to resist President Donald Trump and his sweeping and controversial agenda.
The races, in Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional Districts, which Trump carried by 37 and 30 points in last year’s presidential election, are being viewed as early referendums on the opening couple of months of Trump’s second tour of duty in the White House.
While the GOP was expected to sweep both races, some public and private polling suggests the 6th District showdown is now a margin-of-error race.
WHAT TRUMP SAID ABOUT THE FLORIDA SPECIAL ELECTIONS
Additionally, Trump, pointing to the Democratic candidates’ massive fundraising advantage, voiced growing concerns by Republicans as he told reporters on Friday that “you never know what happens in a case like that.”
Jimmy Patronis, the Florida chief financial officer, is favored over Democrat Gay Valimont in a multi-candidate field in the race to fill the vacant seat in the 1st CD, which is located in the far northwestern corner of Florida in the Panhandle region.
However, Valimont topped Patronis in fundraising by roughly a five-to-one margin.
WHAT IT WOULD MEAN FOR THE HOUSE GOP MAJORITY IF REPUBLICANS LOST ONE OF TUESDAY’S ELECTIONS: ‘IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT’
Republican Matt Gaetz, who won re-election in the district in last November’s elections, resigned from office weeks later after Trump selected him to be his nominee for attorney general in his second administration. Gaetz later withdrew himself from Cabinet consideration amid controversy.
However, it is the race in the 6th CD, which is located on Florida’s Atlantic coast from Daytona Beach to just south of Saint Augustine and inland to the outskirts of Ocala, that is really raising concerns among some in the GOP.
The race is to succeed Republican Michael Waltz, who stepped down from the seat on Jan. 20 after Trump named him his national security adviser.
Republican state Sen. Randy Fine is facing off against teacher Josh Weil, a Democrat, in a multi-candidate field.
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Weil grabbed plenty of national attention in recent weeks by topping Fine in the campaign cash battle by roughly a 10-to-1 margin.
The cash discrepancy in the 6th CD race spurred GOP-aligned outside groups to make last-minute contributions in support of Fine, with conservative super PACs dishing out big bucks to launch ads spotlighting Trump’s support of Fine and to take aim at Weil.
Josh Weil, a schoolteacher and Democratic candidate for Florida’s 6th Congressional District, speaks at a town hall event in Ocala, Florida, on March 26, 2025. (Reuters/Octavio Jones)
“Liberal Josh Weil wants to roadblock the Trump agenda,” the announcer in a spot from the Conservative Fighter PAC charges.
America PAC – which is bankrolled by billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s top donor last year – made infusions as well during the closing days ahead of the election.
DEMOCRATS FAR FROM THRILLED ON POSSIBLE BIDEN POLITICAL REEMERGENCE
“I would have preferred if our candidate had raised money at a faster rate and gotten on TV quicker,” Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), told reporters last week. However, Hudson added that Fine is “doing what he needs to do. He’s on TV now,” and he emphasized, “We’re going to win the seat. I’m not concerned at all.”
Neither the NRCC nor the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top super PAC backing House Republicans, put any resources into the race.
However, Trump headlined tele-town halls for both Fine and Patronis late last week, and he also took to social media on Saturday to praise both candidates, in efforts to turn out Republican voters.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on Friday, March 28, 2025, in Florida. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
“Randy has been a tremendous Voice for MAGA,” Trump wrote about Fine. “In Congress, Randy will be an incredible fighter.”
While Trump was optimistic about sweeping both Florida elections – saying “they seem to be good” – concerns about holding the seat in Florida’s 6th CD may have contributed to the president’s pulling last week of his nomination for GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as United Nations ambassador.
Stefanik represents New York’s 21st Congressional District, a large, mostly rural district in the northernmost reaches of the state that includes most of the Adirondack Mountains and the Thousand Islands region. She cruised to re-election last November by 24 points.
“We don’t want to take any chances. We don’t want to experiment,” Trump said as he pointed to what would have been a special election later this year to fill Stefanik’s seat if she had resigned if confirmed as U.N. ambassador.
“She’s very popular. She’s going to win. And somebody else will probably win, too, because we did very well there. I did very well there. But the word ‘probably’ is no good,” the president added as he once again emphasized he did not “want to take any chances.”
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and then-former President Donald Trump at a New York event. (Getty Images)
Trump was not the only Republican expressing some concerns about the race in Florida’s 6th District.
Former top Trump political adviser and conservative host Steve Bannon warned last week that Fine “isn’t winning.” Additionally, two-term Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters last week that the GOP would underperform in the special election, arguing that “it’s a reflection of the candidate running in that race.”
However, it is worth pointing out the contentious history between DeSantis and Fine, who was the first Florida Republican to flip his endorsement from DeSantis to Trump during the 2024 Republican presidential nomination battle.
On the eve of the election, a Florida Republican official told Fox News the party is not panicked about the race, but rather “concerned.” However, the official, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, said a win is still likely by about 7-10 points.
The GOP currently holds a 218-213 majority in the House – with the two vacant seats in Florida and two where Democratic lawmakers died in March.
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, in a Fox News Digital interview on Friday as he kicked off his 2026 campaign for Florida governor, predicted “it would be difficult” for the GOP House majority if the party lost one of Tuesday’s elections.
However, he added, “I’m not looking forward to that. I think we’re going to win both those seats on Tuesday. I think Republican voters in those districts are going to turn out because, at the end of the day, the choice is clear.”
House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer told Fox News Digital that “Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine are exactly who House Republicans need to join our team.”
Emmer, the number three Republican in the House, emphasized that “their votes and leadership will be key as we work to advance President Trump’s agenda in Congress and Make America Great Again.”
DEMOCRATS SWEEP TWIN SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS IN KEY BATTLEGROUND STATE
While the races in the two Republican-dominated districts are far from ideal for the Democrats to try and flip, the elections are the first opportunity for voters and donors to try and make a difference in federal contests since Trump’s return to power in the White House.
Voters in two congressional districts in Florida head to the polls on Tuesday, as Republicans aim to keep control of both solidly red seats and give themselves slightly more breathing room in the House, where they hold a razor-thin majority. (Getty Images)
Democrats say the surge in fundraising for their candidates is a sign their party is motivated amid voters’ frustrations with the sweeping and controversial moves made by Trump in his opening weeks back in office.
They also point to last week’s state senate election in battleground Pennsylvania, where the Democrats flipped a seat from red to blue that Trump easily carried in November’s presidential election.
“The American people are not buying what the Republicans are selling,” House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries told reporters.
Jeffries and other Democrats are not predicting victory, and the House Democrats’ campaign arm – the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – has not invested resources in either race.
However, Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, highlighted that “these districts are so Republican there would ordinarily be no reason to believe that the races will be close, but what I can say almost guaranteed is that the Democratic candidate in both of these Florida special elections will significantly overperform.”
Fox News’ Mark Meredith contributed to this report
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Southeast
Charlotte residents say they feel less safe as city faces second transit stabbing
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Two in three Charlotte, North Carolina, residents say they feel less safe today than they did a year ago, according to a recent survey, as the city reels from two train stabbings.
More than 930 people responded to a survey that the Queen City recently completed before hiring its new police chief, Stella Patterson. Residents overwhelmingly said they want a proactive police force, not a reactive one, with 66% saying they feel less safe.
The results come as Charlotte contends with another stabbing on its light rail system, months after the stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
On Friday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) officers responded to a call regarding assault with a deadly weapon. When they arrived, they found the victim, identified as Kenyon Kareem-Shemar Dobie, with a stab wound, according to warrants.
Oscar Solorzano, 33, was arrested in connection to a stabbing on a Charlotte, North Carolina light rail. (Mecklenburg County Jail)
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Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia, 33, of Honduras, was arrested after the stabbing and charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with serious injury, breaking/entering a motor vehicle, carrying a concealed weapon and intoxicated/disruptive behavior, according to multiple Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sources and arrest warrants obtained by Fox News Digital.
On Monday morning, Solorzano appeared in court, where he was denied bond. The 33-year-old appeared via Zoom in an orange jumpsuit where he was charged. Authorities revealed that Solorzano, prior to the Dec. 5 attack, was banned by Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS).
CMPD noted Dobie was in critical but stable condition when he was taken to a hospital.
The victim told WRAL News that he saw Solorzano yelling at an older woman before Solorzano handed his bike to another passenger and said: “I’m about to show you who I really am.”
“I wasn’t trying to be a macho man,” Dobie said in a TikTok post from his hospital room. “But what I won’t allow is you to attack random people for no reason, especially the elderly.”
Dobie said he jumped up and told Solorzano to leave everyone alone. He said Solarzano then grabbed his hands and stabbed him as he tried to grab him back.
Police in North Carolina have charged a 33-year-old man from Honduras with critically injuring another person in a stabbing on a Charlotte commuter train, just a few months after a Ukrainian refugee was murdered. (WJZY)
According to court documents, reviewed by Fox News Digital, Solorzano broke into a railroad car “with the intent to commit a felony,” while carrying a large fixed-blade knife.
While intoxicated, he challenged Dobie to a fight, cursing and shouting at others using “unintelligible and slurred words,” according to court documents.
He was booted from the country by the Trump administration in March 2018 on a deportation order and reentered illegally during the Biden administration at the Texas border in March 2021, DHS sources said.
WATCH: Migrant who was deported twice accused of Charlotte light rail stabbing
CHARLOTTE MAN CHARGED WITH IRYNA ZARUTSKA’S KILLING COULD FACE DEATH PENALTY
Solorzano was deported a second time by the Biden administration and reentered illegally as a got-away at an unknown time and location.
Solorzano has a prior conviction for robbery in the U.S. and prior arrests for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest and false ID, DHS sources said.
Court records indicate he had known aliases, including Solorzano-Garcia, Oscar Herardo and Kevin Garcia.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks alongside a photo of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was allegedly killed by Decarlos Brown Jr., on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the White House, Sept. 9, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
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The stabbing attack comes months after Zarutska, 23, was fatally stabbed on a LYNX Blue Line light rail while on her way home from work from a local pizzeria shop.
Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, who is accused of killing Zarutska, was charged with violence against a railroad carrier and mass transportation system resulting in death, a capital offense under federal law.
Brown had a history of violent crime, including assaults and robberies, and had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Yet he was still free and walking the streets.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the city of Charlotte and the CMPD for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Alexander Koch and Fox News’ Bill Melugin and Chelsea Torres contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Murdaugh trial court clerk pleads guilty to showing sealed crime scene photos to photographer
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A former South Carolina court clerk pleaded guilty Monday in connection with showing sealed court exhibits related to the murder trial of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh to a photographer and lying about it in court.
Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill, who served as the court clerk in Colleton County, pleaded guilty to four charges — obstruction of justice and perjury for showing a reporter photographs that were sealed court exhibits and then lying about it, plus two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting a book she wrote on the trial through her public office.
“There is no excuse for the mistakes I made. I’m ashamed of them and will carry that shame the rest of my life,” Hill said in a statement read to the court.
She was sentenced to three years of probation.
ALEX MURDAUGH’S MONEY MAN PAYS THE PRICE AFTER ADMITTING ROLE IN MILLION-DOLLAR CRIME SCHEME
Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill is sworn in before taking the stand to testify during the Alex Murdaugh jury-tampering hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024, in Columbia, S.C. (AP)
Her sentence would have been much harsher had evidence surfaced that she tampered with the murder trial, Judge Heath Taylor told Hill.
During Murdaugjh’s murder trial, Hill was responsible for taking care of the jury, overseeing exhibits and assisting the judge. Murdaugh was eventually convicted of murdering his wife and son after a six-week trial, which drew nationwide attention.
Murdaugh’s lawyers said Hill tried to influence jurors to vote guilty and that she was biased against Murdaugh because of her book.
ALEX MURDAUGH SLAMS NEW TRUE CRIME SERIES DEPICTING FAMILY’S DOUBLE-MURDER: ‘MISLEADING PORTRAYALS’
Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill smiles after pleading guilty on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in St. Matthews, S.C. Hill pleaded guilty Monday to showing sealed exhibits from Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial and other charges. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)
Solicitor Rick Hubbard told the judge that a journalist informed investigators that Hill showed graphic crime scene photos to several media members.
He did not name the journalist.
The photos were posted online, and the metadata from the images matched a time when Hill’s courthouse key card indicated she was inside the locked room where the photos were kept, Hubbard said.
Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill is sworn in during a court hearing on Monday in St. Matthews, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)
Hill resigned in March 2024. One of the charges against her stemmed from money prosecutors said she took for herself. She brought a check to court on Monday to repay nearly $10,000.
Journalist Neil Gordon who worked with Hill on “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders” and previously accused her of plagiarism, commented on Hill’s plea to Fox News Digital.
Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill pleaded guilty Monday to showing sealed exhibits from disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial and other charges. (Fox Nation/ Tracy Glantz/The State via AP, Pool)
“I appreciate seeing Becky step up and take responsibility for her actions, including the charge of misconduct in office, as it was directly related to the book I co-authored with her,” he said in a statement. “The specific instance was her decision to arrange a “Facebook Live” from her clerk’s office with the Colleton County Chamber of Commerce solely to promote our book.”
“The fact that it occurred during the workday showed boldness, poor judgement, and frankly ignorance of the oath she took as an elected official.,” he added. “Sadly, poor judgement around our book had been a pattern for Becky, as we later learned she plagiarized its preface.”
Meanwhile, Murdaugh is also serving a prison sentence for stealing money from his family’s law firm and client settlements.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Murdaugh’s attorney.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Florida designates Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations, DeSantis says
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Florida is designating the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday.
The move mirrors a similar action taken by Texas in which Gov. Greg Abbott designated the CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations.
“Florida agencies are hereby directed to undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support,” DeSantis wrote on X.
TRUMP MOVES AGAINST MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AS ISLAMIST GROUP SPREADS IN WEST
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantissaid CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood will be designated as foreign terrorist organizations. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
The governor’s order said the Muslim Brotherhood has long engaged in and supported violence, political assassinations and terror attacks on civilians with the intent of establishing a worldwide Islamic caliphate.
It also said the group, as well as Hamas have active fundraising arms in the United States.
SCATHING REPORT CALLS ON US TO LABEL ISLAMIST GROUP INFILTRATING ALL ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LIFE AS TERRORIST ORG
The order said CAIR, which was created to challenge stereotypes against Islam and Muslims, has had individuals associated with it that have been convicted of providing and aspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.
In a post on X, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said: “Great news! Thanks for this important Executive Order, Governor. We are ready to support!”
A joint statement by CAIR and its Florida chapter said the DeSantis administration has prioritized serving their interest of the Israeli government over the people of the state.
“He diverted millions in Florida taxpayer dollars to the Israeli government’s bonds. He threatened to shut down every Florida college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, only to back off when CAIR sued him in federal court,” the statement said. “Like Greg Abbott in Texas, Ron DeSantis is an Israel First politician who wants to smear and silence Americans, especially American Muslims, critical of U.S. support for Israel’s war crimes. Governor DeSantis knows full well that CAIR-Florida is an American civil rights organization that has spent decades advancing free speech, religious freedom, and justice for all, including for the Palestinian people. That’s precisely why Governor DeSantis is targeting our civil rights group with this unconstitutional and defamatory proclamation.
“We look forward to defeating Governor DeSantis’ latest Israel First stunt in a court of law, where facts matter and conspiracy theories have no weight,” the groups added. “In the meantime, we encourage all Floridians and all Americans to speak up against this latest attempt to shred the Constitution for the benefit of a foreign government.”
Florida’s designation is at the state level. It doesn’t carry the legal force of a federal Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) listing, which only the U.S. State Department can issue.
In Texas, Muslim and interfaith leaders have demanded that Abott reverse his proclamation regarding CAIR. In a lawsuit against Texas over the governor’s declaration, CAIR argued that it violates both the U.S. Constitution and state law.
Texas Gov. Greg Abott designated CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as a foreign terrorist organization. (Getty Images)
The order violates its First Amendment rights and due-process protections, CAIR said, arguing that the state overstepped its authority because terrorism designations fall under federal, not state, jurisdiction.
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