Republican Laurel Lee is projected to retain her seat representing Florida's 15th Congressional District, defeating Democratic challenger Robert People with 54% of the vote in Tuesday's election, according to unofficial results. The win, which comes in a district with freshly redrawn boundaries, marks Lee's third term in Congress.
As reported by Tampa Bay 28, beginning January 3, 2027, District 15 will include Citrus and Hernando counties along with portions of Hillsborough and Pasco counties — a configuration used for the first time in this election. The district formerly covered eastern Hillsborough and parts of Pasco and Polk counties, but the 2026 map dropped the Polk County portion entirely, according to WUSF.
WUSF reported that Lee defeated People on Tuesday night with 54% of the vote in the 15th District. As of 8:20 p.m., Lee had received 152,528 votes districtwide, or 54%, compared with People's 130,057 votes, or 46%, with an estimated 93.5% of the vote counted, per the station's report citing Chronicle Online data.
County-by-County Breakdown Shows a Lopsided Map
The new district's county-level results varied widely. In Citrus County, Lee received 53,058 votes, or 71.1%, compared with 21,488 votes, or 28.8%, for People, the station's report notes. She also carried 63.08% of the vote in Hernando County and 52.02% in the Pasco County portion of the district.
The Hillsborough County slice of the district told a different story. There, People received 50,785 votes, or 69.71%, compared with Lee's 21,943 votes, or 30.12%, according to the same account — a reversal that underscores how differently the district's four counties lean.
A Shrinking GOP Margin in a Redrawn District
The new District 15 is still widely described as GOP-leaning, having voted 59-39 for Donald Trump in 2024, according to an analysis from NBC Miami. But an NBC News analysis cited by the Chronicle found the district's congressional vote shifted 12.15 points toward Democrats compared with the 2024 presidential results. Citrus County alone saw a smaller but still notable shift, with its congressional vote moving roughly 3.54 percentage points toward Democrats compared with the county's 2024 presidential margin.
Lee brings a lengthy resume of public service to her third term. Before Congress, she was a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida and a circuit court judge for Florida's 13th Judicial Court in Hillsborough County, according to WUSF. She also served as Florida's secretary of state under Gov. Ron DeSantis from 2019 to 2022.
From First Win to Third Term
Lee first won the newly created District 15 seat in 2022, receiving 58.8% of the vote against Alan Cohn's 41.2%, according to unofficial results reported by The Ledger. She was reelected in 2024 before this week's third-term victory over People in the newly reconfigured district.
