FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — After failing to persuade U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz not to run for reelection in Broward’s 20th Congressional District, and unable to coalesce around a single opponent, several of her Democratic primary competitors are frustrated.

Dale Holness, one of the candidates, protested Wasserman Schultz’s decision to seek reelection in the 20th District. “Having her come to this seat is really a slap in the face to our people,” he said.

Holness, a former Broward County commissioner, is Black. Wasserman Schultz is white.

Joining the fray moments later, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who also is Black, told Wasserman Schultz that “you never cared about” the residents of the district — until she decided to run there.

Wasserman Schultz said she has secured funding and sponsored legislation on projects and issues important to the African American and Caribbean American communities.

“I have a record of going to bat for minority communities and communities that are oppressed throughout my entire 34-year record, for the LGBTQ+ community, for the African American community,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Sheila, you know that, and it’s politically convenient for you to throw this around right now, but I have led.”

The unusually heated exchanges punctuated a 75-minute joint interview with the the South Florida Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, during which opinion writers and a news reporter asked the candidates a range of questions.

Candidate Elijah Manley also participated. The fifth candidate in the Aug. 18 Democratic primary, Luther Campbell, did not.

The candidates were mostly in sync on major policy issues facing residents of the district, the region, and the country. Their sometimes fiery back and forth in the virtual group interview was a marked contrast to some of their in-person group appearances before civic organizations and Democratic Party organizations.

Redistricting

A central disagreement concerns who can rightfully run in the 20th District. All five qualified, and are on the Aug. 18 primary ballot.

The roots of the dispute are the decision by the Republicans who control Florida state government to adopt a plan from Gov. Ron DeSantis to change the state’s congressional districts. Across the country, Republican states have changed district boundaries after President Donald Trump demanded they craft maps designed to elect more Republicans and fewer Democrats.

The map drafted by a DeSantis staffer crammed as many Broward Democrats as possible in the reconfigured 20th District, making the nearby districts more favorable to Republican candidates.

The homes of Democrats Wasserman Schultz in Weston and U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz in Parkland were placed in a sprawling new, Republican-leaning 22nd Congressional District that extends west to the Gulf of Mexico.

Moskowitz is running in a reconfigured 25th District, which runs along the Atlantic coast from Delray Beach to Miami Beach.

Wasserman Schultz is running in the redrawn 20th District.

The 20th District includes most of the African American and Caribbean American communities in Broward. Among its registered voters, 38.2% are Black, 31.5% white and 18.1% Hispanic. Among registered Democrats, who can vote in the primary, 53.4% are Black, 23.3% white and 13.4% Hispanic. (Race isn’t a required category when people register to vote, and Hispanic wasn’t an option on the form until 1995, so percentages don’t add up to 100.)

The predecessor district was represented for decades by a Black member of Congress.

There currently is no incumbent. Cherfilus-McCormick was in Congress, representing a different version of the 20th District, which extended into Palm Beach County. She resigned in April minutes before the House Ethics Committee was set to convene to decide on what sanctions to recommend. A bipartisan adjudicatory subcommittee found she had committed 25 ethics violations, including breaking campaign finance laws.

She faces a 2027 trial on federal criminal charges, some of which overlap with the House ethics case. The former congresswoman has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has entered a not guilty plea.

The 20th District is so heavily Democratic that the Republican nominee has virtually no chance of winning the November election.

The partisan voting index from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 20, which means it performed 20 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests. Independent ratings from Cook, Inside Elections and the University of Virginia Center for Politics all rate it as a solid or safe Democratic district.

Lived experience

Campbell, Cherfilus-McCormick, Holness and Manley have objected to Wasserman Schultz’s candidacy, arguing that someone who shares the lived experiences of its residents should represent the reconfigured 20th District.

Before the final deadline to get on the ballot, the four candidates met repeatedly to see if they could coalesce around one candidate for a one-on-one contest with Wasserman Schultz, but they couldn’t agree on who would drop out and who would stay in the race, so they’re all running.

Holness, a former Broward County commissioner who twice lost congressional primaries to Cherfilus-McCormick, said Wasserman Schultz should have run for reelection in the more Republican-leaning 22nd District, not in the 20th.

“In my mind, having her come to this seat is really a slap in the face to our people and a shirking of the responsibility of running for the (22nd District) seat that could help us take the House back,” Holness said. “If you’re a strong leader, lead on the front lines, not come where you see an advantage because there are four of us or five of us running for the seat, and it’ll be more expedient and easier for you to win. It is wrong.”

Manley, who has unsuccessfully sought elected offices several times before, echoed Holness’ argument. “Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz should have ran where she lives. I think it’s a slap in the face to run in a district you don’t live in. You should run where you live, and you should take on that fight.”

Manley, who is Black, said the race of the candidate isn’t the issue. “This is about lived experience. This is about communities and knowing those communities that you’re looking to serve, and experience isn’t about what titles you’ve had or what committees you’ve served on.”

He said he was homeless for part of his time growing up and has “the lived experience of being someone who has actually slept down on the street, who’s actually lived in storage facilities and cars.

“You don’t see that on Capitol Hill much, and I think right now what the Democratic Party base is looking for, they’re looking for fighters. They’re not looking for the same old, same old that they get from everyone else.”

Wasserman Schultz, who is the senior Democrat in the Florida Congressional Delegation, said there is “too much at stake” for the district to trade her experience for someone who “will be starting at the beginning.”

She said her current district, which has many Hispanic residents, has a majority of minority voters, and she has represented nine of the 14 cities in the 20th District during her time in elected office.

“Representation matters, there’s no question about that, and experience matters as well. … The totality of the things that (voters) consider will include representation, lived experience, I don’t have the lived experience of someone who’s African American or Caribbean American or Hispanic American,” Wasserman Schutz said. “But my job every single day has been to fight to improve the lived experience of the people who I represent and I have done that.”

Residency

The 20th District, which was changed this year, is basically a square in the central part of Broward, all north of Interstate 595. Most of its eastern boundary is Federal Highway or the Florida East Coast Railway tracks. Most of the northern boundary is Sample Road and much of the western boundary is the Sawgrass Expressway.

The question of who actually lives in the district sparked some of the most spirited back and forth.

The Constitution requires members of Congress to live in the state they’re from, but not in a specific district.

There is a long history of Florida representatives in both parties living outside their districts — including the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, who was a pioneering civil-rights lawyer before he became one of Florida’s first Black members of Congress since the end of reconstruction.

Cherfilus-McCormick said that Wasserman Schultz was abandoning the city of Weston, where she lives, to run in the 20th District.

Wasserman Schultz: “I’d like an opportunity to respond since they just spent about 10 minutes attacking me. Let me just be clear: former Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick does not live in District 20 and never has.”

Cherfilus-McCormick reacted strongly. “Debbie, you’re lying. Debbie, you’re lying. Debbie, you’re lying,” Cherfilus-McCormick said, adding that Miramar has a large Black population. “You’re spinning it and it is disgusting.”

Supervisor of Elections Office records show Cherfilus-McCormick is registered to vote in Miramar, at the address of a home that Property Appraiser Office records show is owned by her parents. It is not in the 20th District. It’s currently in the district Wasserman Schultz represents; under the new Republican redistricting plan, Miramar is in the 26th District, which is mostly in Miami-Dade County.

At the beginning of the joint video interview with the candidates, Cherfilus-McCormick said she was joining the conversation from Miramar, explaining her sometimes choppy video. “Unfortunately I’m in Miramar and it keeps going in and out.”

Wasserman Schultz said Campbell also doesn’t live in the 20th District. Property records show he owns a home in Miramar, which matches the address on his voter registration. Like Cherfilus-McCormick, Campbell is currently represented by Wasserman Schultz and his home is in the new 26th District.

Sharp words

Before Cherfilus-McCormick resigned, she and Wasserman Schultz appeared together at times. When Wasserman Schultz convened a “community update” about the effects of the big 2025 Republican tax and spending legislation, Cherfilus-McCormick participated in the event. She also took part in the ceremonial swearing-in events for Broward Democratic members of Congress, arranged after each election by Wasserman Schultz.

Cherfilus-McCormick made her feelings about her former colleague clear in the joint interview. “I just wanted to start off by, I’ve represented this district for five years, and if you asked me if I had to choose a successor, it would not be Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, 100%.” (She represented the district for four years and 14 weeks.)

At another point, after delivering a lengthy criticism, Cherfilus-McCormick said to Wasserman Schultz, “I don’t have a real issue with you.”

Wasserman Schultz didn’t hold back. Responding to one of Cherfilus-McCormick’s declarations, she said, “It’s politically convenient for you to throw this around right now.”

“That is completely untrue,” Wasserman Schultz added later. “Say whatever you want, Sheila.”

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