Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded the Florida gubernatorial race “for a second and final time” Saturday night, Tallahassee.com reports, signaling the end of an extended recount.
Gillum and fellow Democrat, Bill Nelson, who is running for his own long-held Senate seat against Florida’s current Republican governor Rick Scott, have been in election limbo for more than a week as Florida first proceeded to an electronic recount in both races, and then to a hand recount.
After results were finally certified Saturday, both Scott and DeSantis were clear winners, but so far only Gillum has admitted there’s no way he can prevail over his Republican opponent.
Gillum conceded in a video posted to social media, thanking supporters and acknowledging DeSantis as the state’s next governor.
“R. Jai [Gillum’s wife] and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida,” Gillum said.
“We also want you to know that even though this election may be beyond us, that this – although nobody wanted to be governor more than me – this was not just about an election cycle,” he added. “This was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows for the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government, our state, and our communities.”
DeSantis responded, “This was a hard-fought campaign. Now it’s time to bring Florida together.”
Tallahasse.com reports that more than 8 million ballots were recounted in the gubernatorial race statewide, but that Gillum’s deficit was simply insurmountable. DeSantis won 4,075,445 to 4,041,762.
All eyes, CNN reports, are now on Bill Nelson, who still has not acquiesced in his recount efforts. Nelson’s and Scott’s race went to a machine recount a week ago, at the same time Gillum’s and DeSantis’ did, and even though Scott picked up votes in the machine recount, bringing his lead to more than 12,000 ballots, the race still fell within the margin of error necessary to conduct a hand recount.
Results from the hand recount are expected to be certified on Sunday, no later than noon EST. CNN predicts that “[f]acing an insurmountable vote gap with Scott, Sunday’s deadline will bring an end to Nelson’s bid, barring further legal maneuvering.”
A Democratic strategist close to the operation told Politico Sunday that Nelson has “no path forward”: “It’s done. But it was done before today. This was a total Hail Mary.”
Nelson’s loss should have been clear by now, but Florida’s Broward County — now notorious for a string of election recount disasters this week — “lost” more than 2,000 ballots “somewhere in the building” on Saturday.
“Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said they either misplaced, misfiled or mixed in with another stack,” the Broward County’s Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported. At 8 p.m. Saturday night, Broward gave up the search and resumed the hand recount Sunday morning.