Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis revealed his newly drawn congressional map, which saw effects on the Treasure Coast, including moving Indian River County from the 8th congressional district to the 9th.
That means they'll now share representation with Glades, Highlands, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, and Polk counties. All of this, DeSantis says, is to make the districts more accurately represent the folks that live in the Sunshine State.
The measure was signed into law on Monday, adding four additional Republican-leaning districts, and reallocating four that were formerly Democrat-leaning.
However, Brighid Macchia, president of the Young Democrats of Indian River County, said that this now actually gives them Democratic representation.
"We're a little bit concerned. We do have Darren Soto representing us now, who's a democrat. That is really exciting, but we need to focus on keeping him in office and that seems like it's going to be a core thing after the primaries, we can't do much before then," she said. "But we will be trying to focus on keeping our democratic seats in our new district."
Macchia argues that this also actually hurts the Republicans in places like Indian River County, who have traditionally voted red.
"There's so much that's unknown. Obviously, we know that the republicans are tying to make it so not only our county, but the surrounding ones, have different republican representation. However, we historically had red representation," she said. "The republicans do not want a democratic representative. Not only are they disenfranchising the voices of democrats, they're disenfranchising the voices of everybody."
Because of this, Macchia encourages all voters, red or blue, to hold lawmakers responsible for what she alleged is disenfranchisement.
"I really find it hard to believe that the republican party wants to be misrepresented and disenfranchised at this level. I hope that they take the appropriate action and hold their elected officials accountable," she said.
However, Republicans seem to have a different point of view. In a statement provided to WQCS by Lamarre Notargiacomo, chairwoman of the Indian River GOP, she said that she is, quote, "very happy about the prospect of gaining four Republican seats," and that she believes, quote, "they will pick up four additional seats for Florida" to make up for the loss of Representative Mike Haridopolos for Indian River County.
The future is unknown, as the Equal Ground Education Fund has launched a lawsuit against the state in an attempt to put a stop to the map from going into effect. Still, Macchia said that the Democrats are organizing to think about the next steps.
"We're going to be looking to collaborate with the counties in our new congressional district to campaign and ensure that these people that we now have stay in office," she said.