Early on, Fowler hammered Bennett for having been in Congress for too long (he had first won election a few days before her sixth birthday) and promised to serve no more than four terms in the House. Her slogan was "eight (years) is enough." Shortly after the campaign began, Bennett's wife fell ill and he abruptly announced his retirement. The Democrats drafted state senator Mattox Hair as a replacement nominee, but Hair had too little time to overcome a severe financial disadvantage and lost to Fowler by almost 13 points. Fowler became only the third person to represent the 4th since it was created in 1943 (it was the 2nd District until 1967 when it was renumbered the 3rd), and the first Republican. She was also the first Florida Republican woman elected to the House in her own right (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of the Miami area first came to the House in 1989 to finish out the unexpired term of the late Claude Pepper). She was reelected three more times, all unopposed. In addition to the aforementioned Republican trend in Jacksonville, most of the city's blacks had been drawn into the majority-black 3rd District after the 1990 census.