Jesse Scheckner
Former Wellington Mayor Anne Gerwig appears poised to flip House District 93 red with a razor-thin win over incumbent Democratic Rep. Katherine Waldron, but outstanding mail-in ballots may push the contest to a recount.
With early votes tallied and all 76 precincts reporting Tuesday night, Gerwig led Waldron by 0.58 percentage points in the unofficial results, just outside the threshold to trigger a machine recount. That may change as the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Election’s Office adds more vote-by-mail numbers overnight.
Just 520 votes separated them at 10:30 p.m.
“I expect to be successful at this point,” Gerwig told Florida Politics. “Nothing would surprise me, but I’ve received many congratulations tonight.”
Florida Politics contacted Waldron for comment but did not immediately get a response. This report will be updated upon receipt of one.
While Gerwig performed strongly in fundraising and campaign messaging ahead of Election Day, she still faced an uphill battle. By the Division of Elections’ latest count, 37% of the voters in HD 93 are registered Democrats, 31% are Republicans, and 32% are third- or no-party voters.
Waldron, 64, raised $311,000 this cycle, with about $72,000 in cash on hand heading into the race’s home stretch.
Gerwig, 61, raised $163,000 and had $75,000 left. She also received nearly $44,000 worth of in-kind aid from the Republican Party of Florida for staff, polling and research costs.
Waldron reported no such help from the Florida Democratic Party.
By her count, Waldron passed the most bills of any freshman House Democrat since the 2022 election while bringing home millions in appropriations.
In a second term, she promised she’d fight to reverse legislation that blocked one-way attorneys fees in the state so homeowners can better battle insurance malfeasance and revive a measure she carried last Session to classify firing a bullet onto someone else’s property without permission as trespassing.
Her platform also prioritized helping localities mitigate climate change effects, expanding access to mental health and addiction services, and extending the deadline for condo owners to comply with Florida’s new post-surfside safety law.
Gerwig, who served as Mayor from 2016 to 2024 after a six-year stint on the Wellington Village Council, had an ambitious list of policy proposals. She vowed to push for creating a Florida insurance bill of rights, establishing an insurance fraud task force to root out abuses and lower rates, and making holiday sales taxes permanent.
A self-described education advocate, she also promised to fight to increase teacher pay and classroom funding and to require that financial literacy be part of Florida’s public education curriculum.
Waldron supported the pro-abortion Amendment 4. Gerwig said she prefers a 15-week ban, which the state had in place (without exceptions for rape and incest) before GOP lawmakers pushed through the current six-week ban in 2023.
Campaign ads in the race grew uglier as Election Day approached. A 30-second spot by the House Republican Campaign Committee labeled Waldron as “wacky,” citing her votes for bills expanding a Florida law that limits LGBTQ inclusion in public schools and another banning gender-affirming care for minors as signs she supports “sexually explicit books in grade schools” and “taxpayer-funded sex changes for minors.”
Waldron’s camp ran several digital ads describing Gerwig as an “absent Mayor” because she recused herself from Village Council votes — a move necessary when there are potential conflicts of interest — and bashing her for going negative in campaign ads after saying she wouldn’t.
HD 93 covers Wellington, parts of Greenacres and a western portion of Boynton Beach. Waldron won in 2022 by 1 percentage point (864 votes) against Republican Saulis Banionis, a medical doctor who raised and spent about 60% of what Waldron did, though Waldron previously faced three Democratic Primary opponents.
According to MCI Maps, the district swung widely Democratic in 2018 and 2020, siding with Andrew Gillum for Governor by 15 points and Joe Biden for President by 11 points, respectively.
But it swung Republican in 2022, with voters picking Gov. Ron DeSantis by 3.7 points and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio by 0.2 points.
