Florida's 13th congressional district

Updated on Nov 07, 2023

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Area 429 sq mi (1,110 km)		Cook PVI D+3

Current Representative Charlie Crist (D–St. Petersburg)

Libertarian lucas overby in florida s 13th congressional district

NOTE: This district's boundaries were changed in 2016. This map is not presently accurate.

Florida's 13th congressional district is an electoral district for the U.S. Congress and was reassigned in 2012, effective January 2013, to Pinellas County. The 13th district includes an area from Dunedin to western and northern St. Petersburg.

During 2003–2012, it encompassed all of Sarasota, DeSoto, and Hardee counties and most of Manatee County except for a small northern coastal portion that was then located in the neighboring 11th Congressional District. It also included a small section of Charlotte County.

The district is currently represented by Democrat Charlie Crist.

2006

Election officials certified Buchanan as the winner of the race over Jennings by 369 votes. Buchanan was declared the winner after a mandatory recount and analysis of alleged voting machine errors in the race. The primary controversy in this race was that over 18,000 ballots (or roughly one in six) cast in Sarasota County apparently did not register a vote for this race, far higher than in the two previous elections involving Jan Schneider, but lower than the undervote in 2000. Sarasota County voted for Jennings by a six-point margin. Jennings refused to concede the race and pursued administrative and legal challenges to the result, including an appeal for an investigation of the election with the House Administration Committee. Preliminary results from an investigation by Congress's Government Accountability Office concluded that there was no evidence that the voting machines caused the high undervote, but that inadequate testing made it impossible to prove their complete reliability. Sarasota County has since moved to optical scanned paper ballots as a result of a 2006 referendum vote.

According to a statistical study published in 2008, the missing votes were caused by the ballot screen layout. The authors' best estimate on what the result would have been, had this problem not occurred, gave victory to Jennings at a 99.9% confidence level, and a mean margin of victory for her of 639 votes.

2014 (special)

The district's seat was vacated following the death of Republican Bill Young. A special election was held on March 11, 2014 to replace him. The election was won by Republican David Jolly with 48.52% of the vote over the one time Gubernatorial candidate Democrat Alex Sink's 46.64% and Libertarian candidate Lucas Overby's 4.84%.

Living former Members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 13th congressional district

As of January 2017, there are six former members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 13th congressional district who are currently living at this time. The most recent representative to die was Bill Young (2013), who died in office on October 18, 2013.

Historical district boundaries

In July 2015 the Florida Supreme Court overturned the boundaries of the state's congressional districts, ruling that "the maps were the product of an unconstitutional political gerrymandering." It expressed its distrust of lawmakers and "provided detailed instructions on how to repair the flawed map in time for the 2016 election."

With the future of the boundaries of the 13th congressional district undetermined, the Republican Party may abandon it. This was where (under slightly different boundaries) William C. Cramer was elected to Congress, and he helped build the Republican Party in Florida and the South. He held office from 1954 to 1970. Republican C.W. Bill Young essentially represented the district from 1971 to his death in 2013. But demographics have continued to change, and more recently it has been a swing district. Several Democrats may be interested in running for the seat.

There is speculation that the state legislature may try to define the district as either "decidedly Democratic-leaning or overwhelmingly Democratic" if it takes in southern Pinellas County neighborhoods now represented by Tampa Democrat Kathy Castor in Florida's 14th congressional district.

References

Florida's 13th congressional district Wikipedia

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