The Florida Teacher Who Turned “MAGA Meg’s” District Blue

One of the many Democrats who flipped state House seats during the historic midterms was a public school teacher in Florida’s Palm Beach County. Elizabeth Holmes hadn’t even considered politics before 2026, and within months, she unseated Meg Weinberger, a Trump-endorsed Republican known as “MAGA Meg” who had won the seat in 2024. Earlier this year, Weinberger sponsored legislation to rename the Palm Beach airport after Donald Trump, a project that cost $5.5 million. Holmes’ win there highlights how the MAGA movement is losing some of its power—even in the county Trump calls home.

The genesis of Holmes’ dizzyingly rapid campaign and victory can be traced back to April 15, an especially hard day at work. One of Holmes’ special education students ended up in the hospital after a mental health crisis. When Holmes got home later that day, she saw the news that during union contract negotiations, the superintendent offered the district’s teachers only a 1.5 percent raise—a far cry from the 3.5 percent they’d been hoping for. Holmes channeled her frustration into a Facebook post.

“Today, after one of my hardest, most emotionally draining days of my teaching career, I am reminded that no matter how much we care, no matter how much we do, we are not valued,” she wrote, explaining how a 1 percent raise, after accounting for an increase in health insurance, would leave her with a $414 pay increase for that year. “School district leaders need to take a seat at a student desk and learn something from today’s teachers.” Nationwide, Florida consistently ranks last in teacher pay. 

The post went viral and attracted the attention of Florida 180, a political committee that recruits and provides resources to Democratic candidates running for seats in Florida’s GOP-dominated legislature. In a message, Florida 180 co-founder Sara Miller asked Holmes if she had ever considered running for office. Holmes’ husband initially thought the message was a scam, but she agreed to meet. She decided to run as a Democrat in the 94th district, which encompasses swaths of western Palm Beach county. “Given the opportunity to be supported in running for office, and to make real change at the state level, it didn’t take me long to make that decision,” she told me this week.

Holmes, a mother of four in a blended family that lives in Palm Beach Gardens, ran on promises to address the rising cost of living, support teachers, and protect communities from overdevelopment. Aside from renaming the airport after Trump, Weinberger, who leads the Palm Beach Moms for Liberty chapter, had also filed legislation to rename a portion of Southern Boulevard after the president. Holmes highlighted these proposals in her campaign ads and social media posts, calling them “vanity projects.” In one Facebook post, she stands under the airport sign emblazoned with Trump’s name. “Do you hate this?” she asked, pointing toward the sign. “It’s time to get Meg Weinberger out of Tallahassee.” 

Enough voters apparently agreed. On Tuesday night, Holmes defeated Weinberger by less than 3 points. She is among about 17 Democrats who flipped state House seats, ending the GOP’s supermajority in the state legislature and with it their ability to fast-track legislation and limit floor debates. Although Florida did not see any top-of-the-ticket races—such as governor or US Senate seats—flip blue, the House wins are a sign of the Democratic party gaining momentum in the state as Trump’s unpopularity continues to crater the GOP. The seats are also part of a nationwide trend of Democratic gains in other statehouses. As the Huffington Post reported, Democrats “flipped 549 state legislative seats from Republican to Democratic, flipped control of 12 chambers and broke up 13 Republican supermajorities.” 

Among the other Democrats who overturned Florida House seats is an infectious disease doctor in Orlando; the first Democratic Socialists of America member elected to the state House; and an algebra teacher born in Mexico. Additionally, about a dozen other Democrats in state house races yielded between 47 and 50 percent of votes, a sign that there is a potential for more flipped seats in 2028 with enough funding, which was sorely missing this election cycle. The lack of investment by major Democratic donors was a point of contention in the statewide races as well, where US Senate candidate Angie Nixon and Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly lost by just a few points. “Stop ignoring Florida. We are on the ground doing phenomenal work with very little,” former Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat who termed-out this year from the state house and is now running for Orlando mayor, told me last week. “I want to see us build upon these successes to secure bigger wins in 2028.” 

Holmes’s campaign was scrappy. She fundraised about $53,000 compared to Weinberger’s more than $800,000, which funded several mailers against Holmes, including one showing her next to a drag queen that referred to Holmes as a “liberal teacher.” “Keep classrooms focused on quality education,” it read.

Holmes’s campaign was also largely made up of volunteers, many of them Gen Z students in college or high school, among them some of her former students. Her only paid staffer was campaign manager Hannah Russell, a 17-year-old senior at Jupiter High School. She and Holmes, who teaches at another high school, met earlier this year during a district meeting regarding teacher salary negotiations. Russell and other students had gathered thousands of signatures in support of a teacher raise. A 3.5 percent increase was ultimately approved by the school board.

Holmes said Russell joined the campaign as an intern. By the summer, she became Holmes’s official campaign manager. “She had never worked on a campaign before, but she handled everything,” Holmes said. Russell attended training sessions and consulted with experienced campaign organizers.

Miller, of Florida 180, also stepped away from the political committee and joined Holmes’s campaign. Part of what excited Miller about the campaign was Holmes’ embrace of younger talent, including Russell.  “I loved this idea of training young people to become civically engaged, especially after the last election when so many of them went in the Charlie Kirk path,” Miller told me. “We’re all getting older, and we want to pass the baton on. We desperately need people like Hannah to do that.”

Russell worked on her campaign duties during her study hall period and after school. “It was a grassroots campaign. There was barely any money power to it,” Russell told me. “We had nothing besides people.”

Holmes took an unpaid leave from work to run for office. She knocked on hundreds of doors, sometimes cruising through neighborhoods on a scooter or canvassing under the threat of thunderstorms. She heard stories of families struggling to pay for groceries, gas, or rent. “The cost of living continues to rise and their paychecks are not. And as a public school teacher, I understand that,” she would tell them. She also heard from voters who were upset with Weinberger’s efforts to rename the airport, “instead of addressing this crisis that we’re in.” 

From the beginning, Holmes said she had a feeling she could win. “We worked really hard and we had a positive message,” she told me. “People are ready for change.”