So in the end, are FL democrats going to pick up new seats?
That's a politics question, not a redistricting one. The answer is "yes, probably, but it's the Florida Democratic Party we're talking about so maybe not."
It's hard to see a compliant plan that doesn't at least give the Dems a seat for Orlando. St Pete is going to be a potential seat for the Dems to pick up as well. Beyond that, probably not much.I completely agree. The FL-09 you drew (basically, the successor to the current FL-10) may very well have been even stronger for Obama in 2012. You included all of Osceola County, which actually swung towards Obama in 2012. The other areas at trended that way. You really have to gerrrymander the area to keep from having another Democratic district in the area (albeit considerably more competitive than FL-10). I don't think the FL Supreme Court will allow anything else, as their opinion does not at all give the Legislature the benefit of the doubt. Considering the current FL-10 is R+6 and Democrats came particularly close in 2012, I think Democrats could almost lock the seat down with Val Demings.
FL-13 (FL-14 by extension) was always the district that bothered me the most in Florida. It was a blatant partisan gerrymander and an obvious violation of the Florida Constitution. Alex Sink would've easily won the special election for a FL-13 that included all of St. Petersburg. There's absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be separate Tampa and St. Petersburg districts, as I've noted and made maps of in the past. Is there any reason you chose not to have FL-15 take the (non-FL-12/FL-14) remainder of Hillsborough County to avoid an addition county split?
Overall, I think the map change itself will most likely result in D+1 (losing FL-02 and gaining a seat each in St. Petersburg and the Orlando area). The changes in South Florida are likely to be insignificant. FL-26 will be competitive either way and FL-27 will not be (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is basically invincible).
