Nation will ‘come together,’ Scott says
Gov. Rick Scott declared victory Tuesday with a slim 0.68 percentage point win over U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who conceded even though his campaign raised issues with ballot counting in several South Florida counties.
Nelson advisor Dan McLaughlin told supporters at Nelson’s election night event at the Embassy Suites in Orlando that the campaign had concerns about ballot counting in several south Florida counties.
But just after midnight, the Nelson campaign said he would concede.
“This is obviously not the result Senator Nelson's campaign has worked hard for,” said Pete Mitchell, Nelson’s campaign manager. "The senator will be making a full statement tomorrow to thank all those who rallied for his cause."
Shortly before midnight, Scott talked to his supporters in Fort Myers, who were chanting “Senator Scott, Senator Scott.”
“It’s hard to believe we’re here tonight,” he said. “This campaign is behind us and that’s where we’re going to leave it."
He acknowledged that the campaigns he’s been in are "divisive and tough and actually way too nasty. But now … we’re going to come together."
Scott added, "I’m not going to D.C. to win a popu-
larity contest. I’m going to D.C. to get something done. … We will change, like we did in Florida, the direction in D.C."
Nelson’s slim hopes Tuesday night had rested with several precincts in Broward County that had to enter results manually, with the potential for a recount being triggered if the final margin was within 0.5 percentage points. More than 61 percent of eligible Floridians cast a ballot, a big increase over the 51 percent turnout in the last midterm election in 2014.
The win — his smallest margin of victory yet — echoes Scott’s two other statewide elections, a 1.2 point win in the 2010 governor’s race and a 1 point win in his 2014 re-election.
Scott, who spent millions to win the 2010 GOP nomination for governor and in his two general election campaigns, again spared no expense in his race this year.
According to the Federal Election Commission, Scott had spent more than $51 million of his own money by late October, in addition to another $16 million raised by his campaign and more than $28 million spent by the affiliated New Republican PAC.
Nelson’s campaign raised much less, only $25 million, but had been buoyed by major support from the Democratic Senate Majority PAC, which spent $21 million, and a combined $14 million from Priorities USA Action PAC and the dark money group Majority Forward.
Scott had been distancing himself from President Trump for most of the year, despite being one of his earliest supporters and leading a pro-Trump PAC, avoiding most Trump campaign events and directly disagreeing with Trump’s false claim that the death county in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria was inflated by Democrats. Scott even released a Spanish-language ad claiming he "confronted" Trump over the issue.
But in the last few weeks, Scott once again returned to campaigning with Trump, appearing at two Trump "MAGA" rallies in Fort Myers and Pensacola along with gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis.
Scott had been inroads with Puerto Ricans, a traditionally independent-butDemocratic-leaning group, due to efforts to help evacuees in Florida and island residents after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
But his advantage over Nelson with Hispanics appeared to grow smaller as the year went on, and by October Nelson was leading Scott among Hispanics in most polls, including a Telemundo poll conducted by Mason-Dixon that showed Nelson with a substantial lead with Puerto Ricans in Florida.
Nelson looked to overcome questions of whether he was as well-known in the Hispanic community as other Democrats, traveling to Puerto Rico with U.S. Rep. Darren Soto and finally winning the endorsement of Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello, who had been equivocating between supporting a fellow Democrat or not damaging his working relationship with Scott.
Nelson’s campaign was thought to have been helped by the surge of youth and African American support for gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, with many experts thinking Nelson could ride Gillum’s coattails. But in the end, Nelson actually appeared to be doing better statewide than Gillum.
Nelson did well in big, urban counties, getting 62 percent of the vote in Orange and 66 percent in Miami-Dade. Nelson also did well in the usually Republican-leaning Seminole County, beating Scott there 51 percent to 49 percent.
But Scott whittled away at Nelson by pulling together big margins in small counties and holding his own in counties such as Pinellas and Duval. The Panhandle counties, which began reporting at 8 p.m., helped move Scott into the lead.
Scott had gotten a chance to highlight his disaster management skills in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in the Panhandle region.
Nelson’s loss end a political career for Nelson dating back to 1972, when he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives from Central Florida. He also spent 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and eight years as the state’s Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal before being elected to the Senate in 2000.