Two Trump-backed candidates lose, Debbie Wasserman Schultz wins in Tuesday’s House primaries in Florida

GOP Rep. Cory Mills lost his primary, while Trump-backed Catalina Lauf also failed to win a primary for an open Republican seat.

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has won her party’s nomination for re-election, NBC News projects, while two Republican House candidates backed by President Donald Trump lost their primary bids in Florida on Tuesday.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and other party leaders redrew Wasserman Schultz’s current district and three other Democratic seats into four new GOP-leaning districts the party hopes to flip in November.

The move prompted Wasserman Schultz, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, to run in the 20th District, which has long been represented by Black Democrats and is vacant because Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned after being indicted and accused of stealing millions in Covid relief. She has denied wrongdoing.

Wasserman Schultz’s decision sparked some frustration among Black Democrats. Cherfilus-McCormick ran again for the seat, and the other candidates were all Black Democrats: activist Elijah Manley, who was backed by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness; and Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, the hip-hop star and former 2 Live Crew band member.

But ultimately, Wasserman Schultz bested the crowded field and avoided adding her name to the list of incumbents who have lost their re-elections this year. Her Democratic colleague Rep. Jared Moskowitz also won his primary in the battleground 25th District, brushing aside a challenge from the left by Oliver Larkin, a democratic socialist former union organizer.