Two Trump-backed candidates lose, Debbie Wasserman Schultz wins in Tuesday’s House primaries

Debbie Wasserman Schultz has won her party’s nomination for re-election, NBC News projects, while two Republican House candidates backed by President Donald Trump lost their primary bids in Florida on Tuesday. Ron DeSantis and other party leaders redrew Wasserman Schultz’s current district and three other Democratic seats into four new GOP-leaning districts the party is hoping to flip in November. The move prompted Wasserman Schultz, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, to run in the state’s 20th District, which has long been represented by Black Democrats and is vacant because former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned after being indicted and accused of stealing millions in Covid relief. She has denied wrongdoing.

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Scoop News DeskFlorida · Published Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at 1:00 AM UTCUpdated Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at 9:42 PM UTC

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Former television journalist Ryan Elijah defeated the incumbent in the state’s 7th District, as Mills came into the race wounded by a slew of controversies, including a House Ethics Committee probe into sexual misconduct and campaign finance violations and a Justice Department investigation, NBC News previously reported.

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