Democrat Emily Gregory flips deep-red Florida House district that includes Mar-a-Lago

(CNN) — Democrat Emily Gregory has won a special state House election in a Palm Beach district that includes President Donald Trump’s Florida home of Mar-a-Lago, adding another special election win to a recent string of victories around the country for Democrats.

Tuesday’s election was a prime opportunity for Democrats in the ruby-red Sunshine State to notch a win in a state where the party is often short of them, in a district with political resonance.

Gregory, a business owner and military spouse running for office for the first time, defeats Republican Jon Maples, a former council-member of nearby Lake Shores who first received Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” in January.

“When we started this, nobody thought it was possible. They thought we were crazy,” Gregory said to her supporters at her election night party. “I knew my community. I knew we deserved better. We deserve a leader who will fight for us.”

Mar-a-Lago will now be represented by a trio of Democrats across the Florida state House, Senate and US House, though Republicans have overall control of all three. State House District 87 has been vacant since August of last year, when former Republican state Rep. Mike Caruso, who won reelection in 2024 by 19 percentage points, left the seat to become the Palm Beach County clerk and comptroller. Trump won the district by 11 points during the 2024 presidential election.

In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett just after polls closed, Gregory said Trump was not a factor when it came to her campaign, saying she focused on Maples and “issues that matter most to Florida families.”

“Everyone is feeling that affordability crisis and the last thing that Florida families needed when they’re struggling is $4 gas,” Gregory said.

She added that although Trump’s presence in the district was not a part of her campaign, she would welcome the chance to speak to Trump.

“I would be happy to have a conversation. And you know, all 180,000 residents of District 87 are my priority if I’m so lucky to serve,” Gregory said. “I will put them all with equal weight.”

Some voters in Palm Beach on Tuesday who voted for Maples didn’t know about Trump’s endorsement. To some, it made little difference, but one Republican voter, Michelle Hall, told CNN that Trump’s endorsement was “fabulous.”

“Anything Donald does, I do,” Hall said.

It also came as a surprise to some voters that Trump voted by mail in Tuesday’s special election even as he has decried mail-in voting and sought to sharply limit it with the Republican-backed SAVE America Act, which would end the widespread practice of no-excuse mail-in voting.

“Are you kidding me? I had no idea,” Hall said in response a question about it, saying voting by mail “is terrible unless you have a disability, you’re pregnant, you’re in the hospital, you’re military.”

She added, “If he’s against something, why are you doing it?”

Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Trump’s voter ID bill “has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel.”

“As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, DC,” she said. “This is a non-story.”

Although the shadow of the president loomed large in his home district, both Gregory and Maples mostly focused on the issue of affordability during the campaign, a subject that proved to be successful for Democrats in 2025 elections and one that Republicans have struggled to own during Trump’s second term.

Another Democratic special election win

Special elections often feature low turnout, placing an especially high emphasis on voter enthusiasm that can swing results more effectively than in larger elections.

But a win by Gregory is just one more feather in Democrats’ caps after last fall, when they flipped more than 20 state legislative seats in special or regularly scheduled elections.

Since the start of this year, Democrats have flipped seats in Arkansas, New Hampshire and Texas, where they won a state Senate district that had voted for Trump by 17 points in 2024.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Meridith Edwards and Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.