Tampa Lawmaker's Switch To GOP Creates Supermajority In FL House

TAMPA, FL — A Tampa lawmaker recently switched political parties, joining the Republican party weeks after winning the Florida House of Representatives District 64 seat as a Democrat.

The abrupt move by Susan Valdés gives the GOP a super majority of 86-34 — and the party’s largest-ever majority — in the state's House, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Valdés, who was first elected to the Florida House in 2018, announced her party change in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday afternoon.

“In the House, I have long known that no one has a monopoly on good ideas. I will not waste my final two years in the Florida Legislature being ignored in a caucus whose leadership expects me to ignore the needs of my community,” the former Hillsborough County school board member wrote.

The move came after Valdés lost her bid for chair of the Hillsborough County Democratic Party.

"While it remains disturbingly unclear whether she was entertaining the switch to become a Republican even as she was running to lead the local Party, ultimately it is her constituents in District 64 who have the most reason to be upset and betrayed," Vanessa Lester, Hillsborough County Democratic Party chair, said in a statement shared on the party’s Facebook page. "They voted for a Democrat to fight for them and ended up with a political opportunist who abandoned them."

A West Tampa native, Valdés said she’s been a member of the Democratic Party largely because of family influence.

“I have spent my adult life fighting to give a voice to the people of my West Tampa home. I have done so as a Democrat partly out of habit — I come from a family of Democrats — and partly because I believed the Democrats were the part most concerned with the working families I represent,” Valdés wrote.

She also praised House speaker, Rep. Daniel Perez, in her statement, saying that he “has laid out a vision for the House that focuses on empowering House members to work on real problems facing our communities,” she wrote.

Valdés added, "That’s what I want to be a part of. I want to roll up my sleeves and work. I want to be a part of solving problems for West Tampa. I’m tired of being the party of protesting when I got into politics to be part of the party of progress.”