The Florida Republican Party celebrated on Wednesday the reelection of Cuban-American congressman Mario Díaz-Balart in District 26, following an election night marked by a dramatic back-and-forth in the vote count that kept both campaigns in suspense for hours.
The Florida GOP published a victory graphic on X with the message "A well-deserved victory for Congressman Díaz-Balart! Congratulations on your reelection and for continuing to put Florida first."
The congressman himself expressed gratitude for the public support on the same social network: "I feel deeply honored and humbled by the trust that the residents of District 26 have placed in me once again. Serving this community for more than two decades has been the privilege of my life."
The provisional results, with nearly 99% of the precincts counted, gave Díaz-Balart 114,547 votes (49.87%) compared to 112,775 for the Democrat Nicole Locklin (49.10%), a difference of just 1,772 votes, equivalent to 0.77 percentage points.
The contest, however, was not without suspense. In the early hours of Tuesday to Wednesday, a block of 3,000 votes favored Locklin, placing her ahead by 1,126 votes at 11:16 PM Eastern Time, which led the Democratic candidate to proclaim on X: "This race is not over."
Díaz-Balart later rallied and regained the lead he maintains in the provisional count.
Locklin, a 38-year-old lawyer making her first appearance before Congress, has not conceded defeat and her post on X garnered over 292,000 views.
NBC News calculated, however, that the Democrat would need to secure 99.8% of the remaining votes to surpass the incumbent Republican, a mathematically unlikely scenario.
The provisional margin of 0.77% exceeds the 0.5% threshold set by Florida law to trigger an automatic machine recount, although the results still need to be officially certified by the state.
The result was surprising due to its narrowness. In 2024, under the previous district boundaries, Díaz-Balart had won by nearly 42 points.
The redesign of District 26 approved in 2026 eliminated Collier County and incorporated areas of southwestern Broward with a stronger Democratic presence, transforming what was once a comfortable Republican stronghold into a competitive race.
The territorial division was notable: Locklin outperformed the Republican by about 22 points in Broward, while Díaz-Balart gained a similar advantage in Miami-Dade, where areas like Hialeah, Doral, and Miami Lakes are concentrated.
The congressman, who has held a federal seat since January 2003, received public support from President Donald Trump, who described him as a “proven leader” on Truth Social days before the elections.
In the neighboring District 27, the also Cuban-American María Elvira Salazar declared victory by just 1,116 votes (0.45%), a margin that does trigger the automatic recount threshold in Florida, on a night when the Democratic wave shifted the balance of power in Congress nationally.
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