FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz faced an existential threat to her political career this spring and summer — first from Republicans who've long sought her ouster, and then from some of her fellow Democrats.
She went on to defy the naysayers and vanquish her opponents.
Wasserman Schultz's victory in Tuesday's primary — in a district so Democratic that President Donald Trump finished 37 points behind Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 — all-but-guarantees she'll win a 12th term in Congress in November.
"I'm overcome with gratitude. We worked so hard," Wasserman Schultz said Tuesday night, hours after the magnitude of her primary win — more than 22 points ahead of the second-place candidate — became apparent.
"The most important thing to me was to make sure that the voters of District 20 knew that they could count on me not only to show up for them when I need them, like at election time, but that I would be there for them when they need me," she said, describing herself the way she did throughout the campaign. "I am a Broward girl. I know these communities."
"I honestly wasn't nervous. I was committed," Wasserman Schultz added.
The reality was that the 2026 primary season, though short, was brutal. It was marked by a major redrawing of the state's congressional district boundaries — her current district was chopped up, with its territory split among five other districts — followed by furious pushback from leaders in the Black community, including some longtime allies, who said she shouldn't have run for reelection in the recrafted 20th Congressional District.
"Why did Debbie Wasserman Schultz win? Because of her long career and experience, and all of the supporters she's gained over the years. And secondly because the opposition split the vote," said Sean Foreman, a Barry University political scientist.
"She's, I think, seen as an accomplished representative. That's what matters: The notion that she knows her way around Washington, D.C., and the expectation that she can help steer resources to Broward County were her biggest assets," Foreman said.
A confluence of events led to the acrimonious four-month primary campaign.
Vacant seat: Former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick represented the previous configuration of the 20th District until she resigned in April — minutes before the House Ethics Committee was set to convene to recommend what sanctions should be imposed after its adjudicatory subcommittee found she committed 25 ethics violations. She has denied wrongdoing. She also faces a federal criminal trial next year, and has entered a not guilty plea.
Redistricting: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in May a reconfiguration of the state's congressional districts. The new map drafted by a DeSantis staffer set up districts to elect more Republicans and fewer Democrats. The change included chopping up Wasserman Schultz's previous, all-Broward district into five pieces and attaching the pieces to other districts, four of which were mostly outside Broward and three of which leaned Republican.
Race: The reconfigured 20th District, where Wasserman Schultz ran and won, included most of the Black American and Caribbean American communities in the county. Previous iterations of the district were represented by a Black lawmaker since 1993.
Voter registration numbers show about 38% of the district's voters are Black. Among Democrats, who were eligible to vote in the primary, 53% of those registered are Black.
Wasserman Schultz is white. The other four candidates — Cherfilus-McCormick, attempting a comeback; Dale Holness; Elijah Manley and Luther Campbell, all of whom are Black — didn't want Wasserman to run in the 20th District.
The candidates and some community leaders, including Marsha Ellison, president of the Fort Lauderdale/Broward branch of the NAACP, and Corey Shearer, president of the Broward County Democratic Black Caucus, said the district should be represented by someone who has the "lived experience" of a sizable number of constituents.
Passions were high for the entire campaign season. At one gathering of political clubs in May, where Wasserman Schultz was advertised as the evening's speaker, most of the 200-plus political activists, elected officials and candidates stood, applauding and cheering, when she was introduced.
People at a few of the 25 tables, most of whom were Black, stayed in their seats.
In June, Harold Pryor, the Broward state attorney, convened meetings among the four Black candidates to see if they could strike a deal for one of them to go against Wasserman Schultz one-on-one, with the others dropping out. The effort failed when they couldn't agree on who would remain in the race and who would drop out.
The contest generated heated discussion on social media and attracted national media attention, including invitations for the challengers to appear on cable TV shows and streaming platforms.
Some young progressive and democratic socialist activists sought to rally opposition to Wasserman Schultz, as did an organization that opposes candidates supported by the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Wasserman Schultz is the first Jewish woman from Florida elected to Congress.
Wasserman Schultz told voters that her experience in Washington would produce tangible benefits for the district.
A former chair of the Democratic National Committee and the longest-serving Democrat in the Florida delegation, she is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, which often turns policy ideas into law and funding requests into concrete spending. And she is close to House leadership as a member of the party's Steering and Policy Committee.
"It is absolutely certain that representation matters. And lived experience matters. But experience and making sure that you have someone who has the seniority and the seasoning to deliver for a district, it matters as well," she said at a candidates forum at the Urban League of Broward County. She promised to "enhance the lived experience" of its residents if elected, and repeated that pledge Tuesday night after the results were in.
Just 24 minutes after the polls closed on Tuesday, she'd run up such big margins in early voting and mail ballots that The Associated Press declared her the winner.
Unofficial returns showed Friday she received 45.3% of the vote, well ahead of Holness, a former Broward County and Lauderhill city commissioner, who received 23.1%.
The two other candidates, both of whom have significant name recognition, were in the single digits. Cherfilus-McCormick finished in fourth place, with 9.2% of the vote and Campbell, who once was leader of the rap group 2 Live Crew, finished last, with 8.4%.
The reconfigured 20th District 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 FEC railroad tracks. Most of the northern boundary is Sample Road and much of the western boundary is the Sawgrass Expressway. It has a protrusion that straddles Interstate 95 reaching north to the Palm Beach County line.
Precinct-level results show Wasserman Schultz was strongest in the eastern, northern and western parts of the district. Holness was strongest in the central part of the district.
There was high interest in the race. Democratic voter turnout was slightly higher (31%) in the 20th District than it was countywide (29.7%).
Wasserman Schultz faces Republican Brent Andersen, a Pompano Beach insurance broker, in November.
But the political leanings of the district essentially make the results a foregone conclusion. The partisan voting index from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as D+20, which means it performed 20 points more Democratic than the nation during the last two presidential contests.
The 2028 outlook is less certain. The districts could change again. And Wasserman Schultz could face primary challenges from some of the same candidates or others.
Holness, who came in second, and Manley, who came in third, said in the hours after the results came in that they did not know yet what they would do in 2028.
People who doubted or counted out Wasserman Schultz, assuming she wouldn't do well with some Black voters because she is white, missed some key elements about her time in public office and people's voting decisions.
She has built long relationships with Democratic constituencies throughout the county, including among Black civic leaders, pastors and everyday people she has met or worked with over the years.
Long before the 2026 campaign, Wasserman Schultz has been attending Sunday services in Black churches. For years, she was in front for Souls to the Polls marches down Sistrunk Boulevard, the main street of the historically Black northwest section of Fort Lauderdale
Retired Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes, a friend for more than 30 years, helped mobilize Black voters to support Wasserman Schultz, whom she described as a fighter and a warrior.
Also working on behalf of Wasserman Schultz was Maisha Williams, daughter of the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings. In 1992, he was among first three Black Floridians elected to Congress since the end of the post-Civil War era Reconstruction, representing much of the territory Wasserman Schultz was running in this year. Hastings served until his death in 2021.
"My dad and Debbie Wasserman Schultz were more than just colleagues in Congress, they were friends," Williams said in a video she recorded for the campaign. "When Debbie sees injustice and racism, she stands up, she speaks out, and she fights just like my dad."
Holmes and Williams were at Wasserman Schultz's side on primary night.
Maxine Williams, of Fort Lauderdale, went to the early voting site at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center to cast a ballot for Wasserman Schultz.
"As far as I know, she's been loyal to our community, and an upstanding person," Williams said. "She fights for the things I believe in. It's not about color. It's about opportunity and being for the people."
Wasserman Schultz had significantly more campaign money than the others. The last pre-primary campaign finance report, reflecting money raised and spent through July 29, showed she had raised $3.3 million and had had $1.9 million in cash on hand.
Holness had raised $395,000 and had $269,000 cash on hand.
Wasserman Schultz is also a tenacious campaigner.
On the first day of early voting, she was in Tamarac, Pompano Beach and Wilton Manors. She attended two back-to-school events, campaigned at an early voting site and went to a Caribbean community LGBTQ+ festival, where she stayed well into the evening talking to festivalgoers.
The next day, campaigning with U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, they attended a church service, had lunch with members of a prominent Black fraternity and visited an early voting site.
A week later, on the final day of voting, when the temperature topped 90 degrees outside the Black American library, Wasserman Schultz spoke for more than trying to convince one voter, Verhonda Darrell of Lauderhill.
"I had questions. My mind was not made up," Darrell said. Among their topics of conversation: Hastings, the late congressman.
As their conversation wrapped up, Darrell gathered her daughter, Kenya, Wasserman Schultz and two campaign staffers into a prayer huddle. She said afterward she still hadn't made up her mind.
"We might not win everybody. We might not convince everybody that we are right or to go our way," Wasserman Schultz told supporters at her primary night event. "But we'll be damned if we lose because we got outworked. We will never get outworked."
When she wasn't attending events, she went door to door to talk to voters. When she wasn't doing that, she joined volunteers making phone calls to voters.
Supporter Alfredo Olvera, president of the Dolphin Democrats LGBTQ+ political club, described the congresswoman's sprint to primary day this way: "If you turned left, she was there. If you turned right, she was there. Nobody will outwork Debbie Wasserman Schultz."