MIAMI — Democratic powerhouse Debbie Wasserman Schultz will return to Congress for her 12th term after clinching the Democratic primary for her new, blue-leaning district.

Her victory continues the powerful Democrat’s 20-plus year reign in D.C., and also marks the first time a white person has represented the district since it was originally formed more than 30 years ago. The district includes much of central Broward County, and touches parts of Fort Lauderdale and Deerfield Beach.

Wasserman Schultz, 59, won more votes than her four competitors on Tuesday evening, which became clear around 7:30 p.m. as Election Day results rolled in. The vote to confirm the seat is on Nov. 3, but given the deep Democrat lean to the district, Wasserman Schultz is now all but guaranteed to represent the district.

Race was the primary topic in the fight for Congressional District 20, a seat that has been represented by a Black person since the district was first created in the 90s in response to the Voting Rights Act. It’s one of the few heavily Black (49%) districts left in the state after a controversial mid-decade redistricting. Wasserman Schultz was the only white candidate in the Democratic primary.

The Supreme Court’s April decision to effectively neuter the Voting Rights Act and make it more difficult to call out racial discrimination in congressional maps set off a mad scramble in Republican states to water down majority-Black districts, including in Florida.

Wasserman Schultz’s decision to abdicate her former District, 25, which was split into five, and run in the adjacent deep-blue district, angered Black Democrats and frustrated party leadership. Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried told the Herald she was “disappointed by the congresswoman’s refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue about her decision.”

At one point, outgoing Congresswoman Frederica Wilson penned a pointed op-ed in the Miami Times explaining the importance of Black representation in the district.

“District 20 is more than a seat in the United States Congress,” she wrote. “It is the seat that Black history built.”

Wasserman Schultz’s competitors first attempted to convince her to remain in her reconfigured former district, which went to President Donald Trump by double digits in 2024. But after she announced she’d instead be running in the neighboring deep blue District 20, they called her a “carpetbagger” and a “colonizer.”

She was almost instantly considered the front-runner when she announced her campaign, as one of the highest-ranking Democrats in Congress with the biggest war chest, by far. She raised more than $3.3 million, more than three times what the next highest-raising candidate collected.

Wasserman Schultz is no stranger to controversy. She was forced out as chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 after critics said she put her thumb on the scale in favor of nominating Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders.

There was no incumbent to campaign against. The seat has been vacant since April, when ex Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick stepped down after being found guilty by the House Ethics Committee of more than two dozen violations, some of them related to allegations that she funneled money from a $5 million overpayment in federal disaster funds into her congressional campaign. Cherfilus-McCormick continues to declare her innocence and calls the investigation, which was launched under President Joe Biden’s administration and carried out by a bipartisan committee, a partisan witch hunt. She goes on trial in federal court next year.

She ran again for the seat, alongside former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness, progressive activist Elijah Manley and Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, former front man in the iconic 2 Live Crew rap group.

In cinching the nomination, Wasserman Schultz proved that her pitch to voters — that congressional experience topped lived experience — was a winning one.

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