Mike Caruso moving north to newly configured House District 87

Two-term Republican Rep. Mike Caruso said redistricting means he’s going to be spending his weekends house-shopping, as he plans to move north to the new House District 87.

The Delray Beach address he has called home since the 1980s is currently in House District 89, and that’s being reconfigured.

The redistricting effort has renumbered his district and shifted its boundaries further west. The district no longer stretches along Palm Beach County’s coastal area. Instead, it is roughly bounded by Highland Beach and Boynton Beach, extending west mostly along Military Trail.

The Democrat-Republican split of his newly reconfigured district he has called home for decades shows it’s getting bluer, and it also draws in incumbent Democratic Rep. Joe Casello.

Caruso said another incumbent is not the reason he’s looking for a house somewhere between Manalapan to Juno Beach, which would fall into the new HD 87.

“It’s a place where I could honestly represent the constituents and their positions and their needs,” he said of the new HD 87. “It’s a purple district and it’s pretty evenly matched. As a moderate Republican, I think I’m poised to run successfully in that district.”

MCI Maps shows that voters in HD 87 were evenly split between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2020, slightly favoring Trump. Results show 49.7% voting for Trump in the new HD 87, and 49.1% voting for Biden.

That compares with his home district under redistricting plans, due to become House District 90, where 60% went for Biden and 38.7% voted for Trump.

HD 87 stretches along the coast and extends from Lantana to Juno Beach, including Lake Worth Beach, West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach, North Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens.

In 2020, by the current boundaries, Caruso’s HD 89 swung for Biden by a tiny sliver, with 49.7% going for Biden, compared to 49.4% voting for Trump.

He said he’s going to miss representing certain cities that he’s come to think of as children, such as Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Highland Beach.

“Leaving home is very difficult,” he said. “I’ve been honored to serve these communities and I’m going to miss them. But I’ve always represented Palm Beach County as a whole.”

Democrat Lauren Allison Levy, of Boynton Beach, lives in the new HD 90 and had filed against Caruso as does Republican Keith Feit, a Republican challenging Casello.