Florida Governor’s Race Heads Into Recount Range, Andrew Gillum Pulls To Under 0.5 Points As Ballots Roll In
Two days after the 2018 midterm elections, the Florida governor’s race still remains up in the air. Democrat Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, appeared ready to take back the concession he offered late Tuesday night when he trailed Donald Trump-backed Republican Ron DeSantis by a full percentage point, as Associated Press reported.
New vote-count numbers posted on the Florida Division of Elections website showed Gillum cutting more than half of DeSantis’s lead with a deficit standing at just 0.47 percentage points as of Thursday night. Gillum, while not yet explicitly calling for a recount, posted a message to his Twitter account saying that “Every voice must be heard in this race!”
As ballots continue to be counted, particularly as Inquisitr reported in the Democratic stronghold of Broward County, Gillum started the day on Thursday trailing by 42,948 votes of 8,189,305 total ballots, a deficit of 0.52 points. Under Florida election law, a recount would be triggered if the final margin dipped below 0.5 points.
But by Thursday afternoon, according to the Tampa Bay Times, Gillum gained 4,441 votes, slashing his deficit to 0.47, well within the recount range. But with an unknown number of ballots, possibly thousands, remaining to be counted, no recount would yet kick in until at least Saturday at 1 p.m. ET, when all of the state’s election supervisors must submit their vote counts to the secretary of state.
In a video posted to his Facebook page on Thursday, Gillum again called for “every single vote” to be counted.
“On Tuesday night, the Gillum for Governor campaign operated with the best information available about the number of outstanding ballots left to count. Since that time, it has become clear there are many more uncounted ballots than was originally reported,” a spokesperson for Gillum’s campaign said on Thursday, according to Florida Politics. “Our campaign, along with our attorney Barry Richard, is monitoring the situation closely and is ready for any outcome, including a state-mandated recount. Mayor Gillum started his campaign for the people, and we are committed to ensuring every single vote in Florida is counted.”
The governor’s race appears to be only one of three statewide Florida elections headed for a recount after Tuesday’s voting, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The U.S. senate race in which outgoing Republican Governor Rick Scott leads incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson stands under the 0.5 point threshold for a recount, as does the race for Florida’s agriculture commissioner.
“The recounts will be nationally watched,” Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who was appointed to the job by Scott, said on Thursday, adding that Florida would be “under a microscope” to be sure that the recounts were carried out correctly, the Huffington Post reported.
