Gillum concedes Florida election
DEMOCRAT Andrew Gillum conceded his hardfought race for Florida governor yesterday and congratulated Republican Ron DeSantis.
Gillum conceded to DeSantis on election night, but backtracked after the margin between the two candidates narrowed. The race went to a legally required recount, but after an initial machine recount, DeSantis still led Gillum by more than 30,000 votes.
Gillum, who is Tallahassee’s outgoing mayor, did not say in a Facebook video yesterday what he planned to do next.
‘‘Stay tuned,’’ he said in his brief remarks.
He said he would remain politically active.
‘‘The fight for Florida continues,’’ he said.
Gillum had a dramatic rise and fall during 2018, coming from well back in the polls during the Democratic primary race to defeat frontrunner Gwen Graham in August. He then led DeSantis in almost every poll until coming up about 33,000 votes short in the general election.
The slim margin, just 0.41 percentage points, triggered an automatic machine recount that gained Gillum just one vote when it was completed on Friday, though several counties, including Broward and Palm Beach, did not report their numbers on time.
The even closer races for US Senate between incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson and Republican Governor Rick Scott and for state agriculture commissioner between Democrat Nikki Fried and Republican Matt Caldwell, with margins of less than 0.25 points, moved to a manual recount. — MCT