Florida Democrat switches districts after DeSantis redistricting shake-up

Pia Dandiya, a first-time candidate, says voters care more about costs than district lines as she seeks a key open seat

What is a sanguine new congressional candidate to do when the district they thought they were running in gets torn apart by a governor’s best efforts to gerrymander his state at the president’s behest?

For Pia Dandiya, a first-time candidate for the Democratic party in Florida , the answer was simple: pick up some maps, hit the road, and embrace the challenge of conquering a different part of the state.

Dandiya, a professional educator dipping her toe for the first time into the often tenebrous world of electoral politics, originally declared her candidacy for Florida’s 21st congressional district, where she was mounting a long-shot campaign to unseat the Republican congressman Brian Mast, an army veteran who bills himself as “Florida’s America first fighter”.

But then Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida and Donald Trump loyalist, intervened. In the consequent Democratic shuffle of candidates , she switched to Florida’s newly configured 22nd – an open seat that Democrats see as one of their best opportunities to reclaim the House majority in November.

“Redistricting, to me, represents what people just hate about politics, that it seems like a solution in search of a problem instead of actually solving the problems that are keeping people up at night,” Dandiya said during a meeting over coffee in south Florida last month. “I would argue that most families are not staying up at night worried about the congressional lines across the state, but they are staying up at night wondering how they’re going to make ends meet, about whether we are handing our children a country, that we are leaving them in good hands.”

Florida’s new congressional map was one front in an extraordinary national redistricting campaign, encouraged by Trump to shore up Republicans’ narrow House majority. In Florida, DeSantis’s unprecedented mid-decade “gerrymander” was expected to put as many as four additional House seats within Republicans’ reach, giving them the edge in 24 of the state’s 28 congressional districts.

With time ticking quickly towards the 18 August primary against attorney Kaysia Earley , the only other Democrat in the race, Dandiya has amassed a string of prominent endorsements. This month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added her to its coveted Red to Blue program , signaling that national Democrats view her as a top recruit for the district.

Formerly enclosed almost entirely in Palm Beach county, district 22 was expanded by DeSantis’s tinkering into a so-called Frankenstein district, stitching together an expansive, diverse swath of south Florida from populated areas on the east and west coasts with sizable rural, agricultural areas in between.

The redrawn 22nd district, once a solid blue urban stronghold, now “leans Republican”, according to Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, but in reality few are certain what to expect given its untested, divergent demographic.

For Dandiya, who was born in Palm Beach county, and was a White House fellow at the education department during the Biden administration, the sudden and unexpected switch could have been overwhelming, and at the very least presented a steep learning curve.

But the first-generation American, whose parents immigrated from India, and mother of a three-year-old son, said she was never going to back down from the challenge.

“I’m a teacher, so I love learning, and I love diving in head first,” she said.

“And all the places that are in my district are places that I have visited growing up and as an adult. I think of this the way that I think of having run a high school, it’s similar to running for office, same mission, potentially different environment. And we’re gonna give it our all.”

Giving it her all has resulted in long days and higher than expected mileage crisscrossing the state, and speaking to groups of voters and at community events in cities and counties ranging from heavily Democratic to fervently Republican.

There is no mystery to it, she said. Only a desire to meet people where they are, and listen to their grievances, anxieties and priorities, which she said are common to all, wherever she has traveled.

Dandiya transferred over from her original district with a substantial war chest, fundraising that has now risen to more than $2m , and carries the endorsement of a significant number of Florida Democratic heavyweights, including the state chair, Nikki Fried, US congresswoman Lois Frankel and a host of state representatives and senators.

She has also won the backing of Florida AFL-CIO, the state’s largest public labor union, and Emily’s List , the influential advocacy group supporting Democratic pro-choice women for elected office.

“With her background in education, policy, and innovation, she is ready to bring a new kind of leadership to Washington,” Emily’s List said in its endorsement. “One focused on progress, opportunity and putting people over politics.”

Dandiya said she was heartened by the reception she has received in places that only two months ago she never envisaged visiting, at least not as a congressional candidate.

“The way folks have come out of the woodwork to get excited about being involved in the campaign, figuring out how they can help using their organizing brains and their connecting brains, has just been truly encouraging,” she said.

“I’ve become very convinced on the campaign trail that most families want the same things for their lives, they want stability for my generation, they want safety and dignity for my parents’ generation, and they want a world of opportunity for my three-year-old son’s generation.

“That rings true in district 22 as much as it does in district 21. What is on south Florida families’ minds, and across the state of Florida, I should say, is very similar. What we are experiencing is universal, it’s not Democratic, it’s not independent, it’s not Republican, it’s what all of us are experiencing, and I think that we need leaders who are willing to fight on the frontlines to put these issues front and center.

“We’re on this big adventure together, and we’re going to make it happen.”