Florida recount: Nelson, Gillum and Fried still in the running. Election’s not over.
It turns out the elections for governor, senator, and at least one cabinet post in Florida have yet to be decided. Of course, with uncounted ballots and provisional ballots and who knows what other ballots yet to be counted, this had to happen in Florida…
The Miami Herald is reporting that “The race for Florida governor appears headed for a recount, as Democrat Andrew Gillum continues to gain on Republican Ron DeSantis during the tallying of the final uncounted ballots cast in the midterm elections.
“Gillum, the outgoing mayor of Tallahassee, conceded the race Tuesday night before 11 p.m. after results appeared to show him too far behind his opponent to make up the difference. DeSantis, a former congressman, gave his victory speech shortly after.
But thousands of votes remained untallied. And over the next 36 hours, the margins gradually shrank.
“By 2 p.m. on Thursday DeSantis’ lead over Gillum had shrunk to a difference of 0.47 percent of all votes which in Florida demands a recount by law — and there are still thousands of ballots that have not been counted.”
Gillum campaign spokesperson Johanna Cervone said the campaign was prepared for a recount effort. “It has become clear there are many more uncounted ballots than was originally reported,” she said in a statement. “Our campaign, along with our attorney Barry Richard, is monitoring the situation closely and is ready for any outcome, including a state-mandated recount.”
The Herald also reported that “the race for Agriculture Commissioner and U.S. Senate also appear headed for recounts, although those races are closer and could force the state to conduct recounts by hand, which is required when the margins between two candidates are within a quarter of a percent.”
After the continued count, Nicole “Nikki” Fried, the Fort Lauderdale attorney who ran for Agricultural Commissioner on the Democratic ticket “is leading Republican challenger Rep. Matt Caldwell by a mere 575 votes as of Thursday afternoon, according to the Division of Elections. At the start of the day, she trailed Caldwell by about 4,000 votes.”
Interestingly, the focus has turned to Broward County, which as the Herald tells us, and according to the Florida Division of Elections “has yet to report all its early voting and absentee voting totals. Broward is a Democratic party stronghold.”